*f 


.     .         :       ;    • 


.-•     .;       -  S     . 


'  |    /'";-      N       '    ,        ' 

'         '' 


mi 


TRACTS 

IN  CONTROVERSY  WITH  DR  PRIESTLEY, 

UPON  THE   HISTORICAL    QUESTION,   OF   THE    BELIEF   OF 
THE  FIRST   AGES,   IN 


ORIGINALLY   PUBLISHED   IX   THE   TEARS    1783,    1784,   &    1786, 

AFTERWARDS   REVISED   AND   AUGMENTED,   WITH   A    LARGE   ADDITION 

OF  NOTES  AND  SUPPLEMENTAL  DISQUISITIONS, 

BY  THE  AUTHOR, 

SAMl-  '  BOF  OF  ST  ASAPH. 

TO  WHICH  IS  ADDED, 

>c>^1 

By  The  Rec.  HENEAGE  IIORSLEY,  A.  M. 

PREBKXDART  OF  ST  ASAPH,  AND  LATE  STUDENT  OF  CHRIST'S  CHURCH,  OXON. 

FIRST  AMERICAN  EDITION. 


n  poi  Soxw  xai  ^axe^ror  d<puf>i<rfjLivov  opctv  tilof. 
TTOHTI  TOIC  axxo/f  aJ7«f  a'/7/ca^uor  fjLiptai—  To    pn  xa7e/So7a  r/, 
iiltvcu   X*   w  n^yreue/    Tra/lct,     baa  S/aKO/a 


PLATO  IN  SOPH1STA. 


BURLINGTON,  N.  J. 

PRINTED  AND  PUBLISHED  BY  D.  ALLINSON. 


r 


Ht, 


TO 

HIS  ROYAL  HIGHNESS 

THE 


Sir, 

THE  remembrance  of  the  attention  and 
regard  with  which  Your  Royal  Highness  conde- 
scended to  honour,  during  the  latter  years  of  his 
life,  the  Author  of  the  following  Tracts,  first 
suggested  to  my  mind  the  wish  of  introducing, 
under  the  sanction  of  Your  High  Patronage,  the 
present  edition  of  them  to  the  publick. 

This  wish  received  additional  strength  from 
the  reflection,  that  the  republication  of  the  Tracts, 
being  intended  as  an  antidote  to  the  dissemina- 
tion of  false  doctrine,  the  success  of  the  design 
would  be  greatly  promoted,  were  the  work  to 


DEDICATION. 


appear  under  the  immediate  auspices  of  Him, 
whom  the  Church  of  England  looks  upon  as  her 


legitimate  Protector. 


The  ready  and   condescending  manner,  in 
which  Your  Royal  Highness  hath  been  gracious- 
ly pleased  to  accede  to  the  petition  expressive  of 
my  wish,  affords  to  the  Church  of  England,  at  a 
crisis,  when  "  those  who  hate  her  wrongfully  are 
many  in  number  and  mighty"  the  high  consola- 
tion, that  she  finds  in  You  what  she  hath  ever 
found  in  your  Illustrious  Father,  not  merely  a 
nominal,  but  a  real  Defender  of  her  Faith— while 
the  personal  honour  conferred  upon  myself,  and 
the  expressions  of  regard  with  which  Your  Royal 
Highness  lias  been  pleased  to  speak  of  the  me- 
mory of  the  late  Bishop  of  St.  Asaph,  must  ever 
be  remembered  with  a  sense  of  the  deepest  gra- 
titude, and  with  feelings  of  unfeigned  loyalty  and 
zealous  attachment  to  Your  Royal  Person,  by 
His  MAJESTY'S, 
and  your  ROYAT,  HIGHNESS'S 
faithful  Subject  and  Servant, 
HENEAGE  HORSLEY. 

Dundee, 
SOth  March,  1812 


THE 

EDITOR'S 


IN  the  interval,  between  the  time  of  Dr.  Priestley's  emi- 
gration to  America  and  the  death  of  Bishop  Horsley,  the 
exertions  of  the  Unitarians  appear  to  have  lost  much  of  their 
wonted  activity.  *«  The  patriarch  of  the  sect  (strange  result 
ofvictorij)  had  fled ;  and  the  oracles  and  orators  of  Birming- 
ham and  Essex-Street  were  dumb  ;  or  if  they  spoke,  spoke 
only  to  be  disregarded."*  No  sooner,  however,  had  happened 
the  melancholy  event  which  deprived  the  church  of  England 
of  one  of  her  most  able  champions,  and,  at  the  same  time, 
released  the  Unitarians  from  the  fears  which  they  had  justly 
entertained  of  their  indefatigable  opponent,  than  the  party 
again  ventured  forth  from  their  hiding  places.  The  columns 
of  the  daily  papers,  were  once  more  filled  with  their  speeches 
at  publick  meetings,  and  the  press  again  groaned  under  their 
pamphlets.  At  a  meeting  of  the  friends  to  the  Unitarian 
fund,  held  at  the  London  Tavern,  immediately  after  the 
rejection  of  Lord  Sidmouth's  bill  in  1811,  one  orator  insisted 
upon  the  necessity  of  diffusing  the  advantages  of  the  Unita- 
rian system  among  the  poor  ;  another  suggested  the  propriety 
of  instituting  an  academy  for  students  between  18  and  25 
years  of  age  $  and  a  third,  to  raise  the  spirits  of  the  party  to 


*  See   the  Bishop  of  Rochester's  Charge  to  the  Clergy  of  his  Diocese  in  the 
year  1800. 


yj  EDITOR'S  PREFACE. 

the  highest  pitch  of  hope,  did  not  scruple  to  declare,  that  so 
far  from  Socinianism  not  becoming  the  religion  of  the 
people,  he  expected  to  live  to  see  the  day,  when,  by  means  of 
missions  among  them,  and  through  the  endeavours  ot  the  So* 
cinian's  friend,  Mr.  JOSEPH  LANCASTER,  Roman  Catholicks 
would  become  good  Unitarians.*  Glorious  aera,  when  all 
errors  in  faith  shall  be  for  ever  done  away  and  abolished,  by 
the  joint  exertions  of  Socinian  Missionaries,  and  Mr.  JOSEPH 
LANCASTER  ! 

His  amor  unus  erat,  pariterque  in  bella  ruebant. 

To  give  reality  to  such  delightful  hopes,  the  activity  and 
zeal  of  the  writers  of  the  party,  corresponded  with  the  vaunt- 
ing language  of  their  orators.  A  bold  endeavour  to  over- 
turn the  faith  of  the  Christian  world,  was  first  made,  by  the 
publication  of  an  improved  version  of  the  New  Testament, 
with  a  corrected  text,  and  notes  critical  and  explanatory  ;  in 
which  every  text  relative  to  the  Divinity  of  our  Lord,  is  either 
expunged  as  a  Trinitarian  interpolation,  or  its  genuine  sense 
frittered  away  by  some  allegorical  or  figurative  interpretation. 
This  daring  attempt,  was  quickly  followed  up  by  a  work  on 
THE  SCRIPTURE  DOCTRINE  CONCERNING  THE  PERSON  or 
CHRIST,  the  author  of  which  introduces  himself  to  the  notice 
of  the  publick  in  the  attractive^  but  in  the  present  instance, 
masquerade  dress  of  a  calm  inquirer ;  and  to  this  calm  inquiry 
he  affixes,  what  he  presumes  to  call,  a  review  of  the  controver- 
sy between  Dr.  Horsley  and  Dr.  Priestly. 

Of  that  controversy,  the  part  of  which  Bishop  Horsley  was 
the  author,  has  long  been  out  of  print ;  and  the  CALM  INOJTI- 
RER,  aware  of  this  fact,  has  not  scrupled  to  pervert  the  Bish- 
op's reasoning,  by  partial  quotations  and  prudent  omissions  ; 


*  Seethe  Morning  Chronicle  for  the  6th  of  June  1811. 


EDITOR'S  PREPACK.  yjj 

presuming^  perhaps^  on  the  scarcity  of  the  book,  that  he  might 
escape  detection^  whilst  he  should  thus  destroy  the  authority 
of  the  greatest  modern  champion  of  the  Catholick  faith  ! 

Under  these  circumstances,  the  Editor  was  strongly  urged 
by  several  of  the  clergy  of  the  church  of  England,  as  well  as 
by  many,  both  of  the  established  and  of  the  Episcopal  church 
in  the  country  in  which  he  now  resides,  to  reprint  the  Bishop's 
Tracts.  With  such  a  request  he  thought  it  his  duty  to  com- 
ply, and  he  sent  an  intimation  of  his  intention  to  carry  the 
work  immediately  to  press,  to  the  British  Critic  for  October, 
1811.  At  the  time  when  he  made  that  communication,  he 
had  by  him  only  copies  of  the  1'racts  as  they  were  published 
in  separate  pamphlets  in  the  years  1783, 1784,  and  1786.  In 
each  of  these  pamphlets,  and  in  the  Editor's  copy  of  Dr. 
Priestley's  part  of  the  controversy,  he  found  numerous 
marginal  notes  in  the  Bishop's  hand  writing ;  and  this  led 
him,  somewhat  too  hastily  he  confesses,  to  state  that  he  was 
in  possession  of  new  matter  of  the  Bishop's,  and  to  promise 
the  publication  of  it.  But  when  he  came  to  compare  these 
marginal  notes  with  the  copy  of  the  Tracts  published  by  the 
Bishop  himself  in  the  year  1789,  he  found  that  the  greater 
part  of  them  were  already  embodied  in  that  edition,  and 
that  in  the  substance  of  what  remained,  he  was  completely 
anticipated  by  Mr.  EDWARD  NARES,  Dr.  LAURENCE,  and 
Mr.  RENNEL,  in  their  able  remarks  on  the  Unitarian  version 
of  the  New  Testament. 

When  offering  the  present  edition  of  the  Tracts  to  the 
publick,  the  Editor  found  himself  called  upon,  by  the  most 
imperious  sense  of  duty,  to  vindicate  the  character  of  the 
author  of  them,  from  the  foul  aspersions  cast  upon  it  by  an 
unfair  and  ungenerous  adversary.  That  the  task  might  have 
fallen  into  abler  hands,  no  one  is  more  ready  to  admit  than 
the  Editor  himself :  but  moderate  abilities  are  sufficient,  to 
vindicate  truth  against  error  and  palpable  misrepresentation ; 


EDITOR'S  PREFACE. 

and  therefore  he  trusts,  that  the  vindication  in  the  Appendix 
will  be  found  complete. 

When  the  reader  shall  have  become  acquainted  with  the 
arts  of  controversy,  which  the  calm  inquirer  has  employed  to 
make  u  the  worse  appear  the  better  argument,"  and  shall  have 
read  the  contemptuous  abuse  he  has  heaped  upon  the  head 
of  Bishop  Horsley  ;  when  the  object  of  that  abuse,  to  use  the 
Bishop's  emphatick  words,  was  gone  "to  those  unseen  abodes, 
where  the  din  of  controversy  and  the  din  of  war  are  equally 
unheard."  he  will  perhaps  think  that  he  has  discovered 
ANOTHER  PERSON  to  whom  the  terms  of  reproach,  which  in  the 
heat  of  debate  fell  from  the  pen  of  one  of  the  original  dispu- 
putants,  may  now  with  greater  propriety  be  applied,  A  FALSI- 
FIER OF  HISTORY,  and  A  DEFAMER  OF  THE  CHARACTER  OF 
THE  DEAD ! 


PREFACE. 


A  GENERAL  view  of  the  controversy  between  Dr. 
Priestley  and  the  Author  of  the  tracts  of  which  the  ensuing 
volume  is  composed,  may  not  be  unacceptable  to  such  of  its 
readers,  who,  for  want  of  leisure  or  of  opportunity,  or  perhaps 
of  curiosity,  to  peruse  the  pieces  on  either  side,  as  they  were 
first  successively  published  in  separate  pamphlets,  may  be 
supposed  to  be  as  yet  unacquainted  with  the  rise  and  progress, 
and  with  the  present  state  of  the  dispute. 

In  the  year  1782,  an  open  and  vehement  attack  was  made  by 
Dr.  Priestley,  upon  the  creeds  and  the  established  discipline 
of  every  church  in  Christendom,  in  a  work  in  two  volumes 
octavo,  entitled,  A  History  of  the  Corruptions  of  Christianity. 
At  the  head  of  these,  the  author  placed  both  the  Catholick 
doctrine  of  our  Lord's  Divinity,  and  the  Arian  notion  of  his 
pre-existence  in  a  nature  far  superior  to  the  human,  represent- 
ing the  Socinian  doctrine  of  his  mere  humanity  as  the  unan- 
imous faith  of  the  first  Christians.  It  seemed  that  the  most 
effectual  preservative  against  the  intended  mischief  would  be, 
to  destroy  the  writer's  credit  and  the  authority  of  his  name, 


<£  PREFACE. 

which  the  fame  of  certain  lucky  discoveries  in  the  prosecu- 
tion of  physical  experiments  had  set  high  in  popular  esteem, 
by  proof  of  his  incompetency  in  every  branch  of  literature 
connected  with  his  present  subject,  of  which  the  work  itself 
afforded  evident  specimens  in  great  abundance.  For  this 
declared  purpose,  a  review  of  the  imperfections  of  his  work, 
in  the  first  part  relating  to  our  Lord's  divinity,  was  made  the 
subject  of  a  Charge  delivered  to  the  Clergy  of  the  Archdea- 
conry of  St.  Alban's  the  spring  next  following  Dr.  Priestley's 
publication.  The  specimens  alleged,  of  the  imperfections  of 
the  work  and  the  incompetency  of  its  author,  may  be  reduced 
to  six  general  classes. — Instances  of  reasoning  in  a  circle  ; 
instances  of  quotations  misapplied  through  ignorance  of  the 
writer's  subject ;  instances  of  testimonies  perverted  by  artful 
and  forced  constructions  ;  instances  of  passages  in  the  Greek 
fathers  misinterpreted  through  ignorance  of  the  Greek  lan- 
guage ;  instances  of  passages  misinterpreted,  through  the 
same  ignorance,  driven  further  out  of  the  way  by  an  ignorance 
of  the  Platonick  philosophy  ;  instances  of  ignorance  of  the 
phraseology  of  the  earliest  ecclesiastical  writers.  This  dis- 
course was  received  by  the  venerable  body  to  which  it  was 
addressed,  with  marks  of  favour  and  approbation,  ever  to  be 
remembered  by  its  author  with  pride  and  satisfaction.  At 
their  request,  it  was  given  with  considerable  enlargement  to 
the  publick.  It  is  the  first  tract  in  the  present  collection.  The 
first  publication  of  this  discourse,  gave  no  small  alarm  to  the 
well-wishers  and  admirers  of  Dr.  Priestley's  doctrines.  Dr. 
Priestley  however  kept  up  the  spirits  of  his  party,  by  pro? 
mising  an  early  and  satisfactory  answer. 

Per  damna,  per  csedes,  ab  ipso 
Ducit  opes  animumque  ferro— — 

was  his  vaunting  language.  He  predicted  that  he  should 
rise  more  illustrious  from  his  supposed  defeat ;  he  promised 
to  strengthen  the  evidence  of  his  favourite  opinion  by  the 
vqry  objections  that  had  been  raised  against  it  $  he  seemed  to 


PREFACE.  x| 

flatter  himself,  that  he  should  find  a  new  convert  in  his  antag* 
onist  himself;  and  his  new  performance  had  scarcely  made  its 
appearance,  when  he  had  the  ridiculous  vanity  to  boast,  even 
in  print,  of  the  shame  and  remorse  with  which  he  was  confi- 
dent his  adversary  must  be  penetrated.  A  controversy  that 
was  in  the  meanwhile  going  on  upon  the  same  subject,  be- 
tween Dr.  Priestley  and  the  Rev.  Mr.  Samuel  Badcock,  the 
author  of  a  learned  critique  upon  the  first  part  of  Dr.  Priest- 
ley's history,  inserted  in  the  Monthly  Review  for  the  month 
of  June  1783,  gave  Dr.  Priestley  the  occasion  of  raising  these 
expectations  in  the  public.  It  was  late  in  the  autumn  of  the 
same  year  (1783)  when  the  work  which  was  to  effect  these 
wonders,  appeared  in  the  form  of  Letters  to  Dr.  Horsley* 
These  Letters  gave  occasion  to  the  tract  which  is  the  second 
in  this  collection,  entitled,  Letters  from  the  Archdeacon  of 
St.  Albon's  in  Reply  to  Dr.  Priestley ,  which  was  first  publish- 
ed in  the  summer  of  the  year  1784.  Dr.  Priestley,  in  his 
Letters,  expressed  a  great  desire  to  draw  his  adversary  into 
a  tedious  controversy  on  the  main  question, — the  article  of 
our  Lord's  Divinity.  His  adversary  knowing  that  question 
to  have  been  long  since  exhausted,  and  that  nothing  new  was 
to  be  said  on  either  side,  chose  in  his  Letters  in  Reply  to  ad- 
here closely  to  his  own  main  question.  He  defended  his 
former  argument,  and  he  collected  new  specimens  from  Dr. 
Priestley's  new  publication,  of  his  utter  inability  to  throw 
light  upon  the  subject.  Thus  a  useless  and  endless  conten- 
tion upon  the  main  question  was  avoided ;  but  many  discus- 
sions necessarily  arose  upon  secondary  points  more  or  less 
connected  with  it.  The  authority  of  the  writings  that  go 
under  the  name  of  the  apostolical  fathers — the  rise  of  the 
two  sects  of  the  Nazarenes  and  the  Ebionites — the  difference 
between  the  two — and  the  difference  of  both  from  the  ortho- 
dox Hebrew  Christians — these  the  learned  reader  will  proba- 
bly esteem  the  most  interesting  parts  of  the  whole  contro- 
versy ;  as,  on  the  other  hand,  he  will  certainly  judge  the  long 
dispute,  whether  the  word  Jews  means  Jews,  on  Dr.  Priest- 
ley's part  at  least,  to  be  the  most  frivolous.  In  these  Letters 


xji  PREFACE. 

in  Reply,  Dr.  Priestley's  antagonist  declared  himself  resolved, 
to  give  no  answer  to  any  thing  that  Dr.  Priestley  might  find 
to  say  further  upon  the  subject.  A  declaration,  in  which  at 
the  time  he  was  much  in  earnest. 

Dr.  Priestley,  mortified  to  find  that  his  Letters  had  failed  of 
the  expected  success  ;  that  his  antagonist,  touched  with  no 
shame,  with  no  remorse,  remained  unshaken  in  his  opinion  ; 
and  that  the  authority  of  his  own  opinion  was  still  set  at 
nought,  his  learning  disallowed,  his  ingenuity  in  argument 
impeached  ;  and  what  was  least  to  be  born, — finding  that  a 
haughty  churchman  ventured  incidentally  to  avow  his  senti- 
ments of  the  Divine  commission  of  the  Episcopal  ministry, 
and  presumed  to  question  the  authority  of  those  teachers,  who 
usurp  the  preacher's  office  without  any  better  warrant  than 
their  own  opinion  of  their  own  sufficiency, — lost  all  temper. 
A  second  set  of  Letters  to  the  Archdeacon  of  St.  Albarfs  ap- 
peared in  the  autumn  of  the  year  1784,  in  which  all  profession 
of  personal  regard  and  civility  was  laid  aside.  The  charge 
of  insufficiency  in  the  subject  was  warmly  retorted,  and  the 
incorrigible  dignitary  was  taxed  with  manifest  misrepresen- 
tation of  his  adversary's  argument ;  with  injustice  to  the 
character  of  Origen,  whose  veracity  he  had  called  in  question) 
and  with  the  grossest  falsification  of  ancient  history.  He 
was  stigmatized,  in  short,  in  terms,  as  a  falsifier  of  history  ^ 
and  a  defamcr  of  the  character  of  the  dead. 

Under  all  this  reproach,  he  continued  silent  almost  eighteen 
months  :  the  character  of  Origen  and  an  intricate  question  of 
ancient  history,  upon  which  the  charge  of  direct  falsification 
had  been  advanced  against  him,  were  indeed  the  only  points 
on  which  he  felt  the  least  desire  to  reply.  A  Sermon  on  the 
Incarnation  preached  in  his  parish  church  of  St.  Mary  New- 
ington,  in  Surrey,  upon  the  feast  of  the  nativity,  in  the  year 
1785,  which  is  the  third  tract  in  this  collection,  was  the  pre- 
lude to  a  renewal  of  the  contest  upon  his  side,  and  was  fol- 
lowed early  in  the  ensuing  spring  by  his  Jtemarks  on  Dr. 


PREFACE.  xii; 

Priestleifs  Second  Letters  to  the  Archdeacon  of  St.  Albarfs^ 
ivith  Proofs  of  certain  facts  asserted  by  the  Archdeacon. 
This  tract  is  the  fourth  in  order  in  this  volume.  It  consists 
of  two  parts.  The  first  is  a  collection  of  new  specimens  of 
Dr.  Priestley's  temerity  in  assertion.  The  second  defends 
the  attack  upon  the  character  of  Origen,  and  proves  the 
existence  of  a  body  of  Hebrew  Christians  at  ^Elia,  after  the 
time  of  Adrian, — the  fact  upon  which  the  author's  good  faith 
had  been  so  loudly  arraigned.  It  also  contains  confirmation 
of  another  fact  which  had  been  incidentally  mentioned,— the 
decline  of  Calvinism  among  our  English  dissenters,  and  a 
chapter  on  the  general  spirit  of  Dr.  Priestley's  controversial 
writings.  With  this  publication,  he  again  promised  himself 
that  the  controversy  on  his  part  would  be  closed.  But  having 
at  last,  yielded  with  reluctance  to  the  solicitations  of  his 
friends  to  republish  these  four  tracts  in  the  present  form,  he 
hath  taken  this  occasion  to  give  Dr.  Priestley's  Letters  a 
second  perusal ;  and  to  many  things  which  he  had  before  pas- 
sed unnoticed,  he  hath  now  replied,  partly  in  notes  occasion- 
ally interspersed  in  the  former  tracts,  and  where  the  matter, 
arising  from  any  particular  question,  hath  turned  out  to  be 
more  than  could  be  conveniently  comprised  within  the  com- 
pass of  a  note,  in  Supplemental  Disquisitions  of  considerable 
length.  The  Remarks  upon  Dr.  Priestley's  Second  Letters, 
produced  a  third  set  of  Letters  from  Dr.  Priestley,  upon  the 
two  questions  of  Origen's  veracity  and  the  orthodox  Hebrews 
of  the  church  of  ^Elia.  These  too  are  answered,  partly  in 
notes  interspersed  in  the  Remarks,  and  partly  in  the  two 
last  Supplemental  Disquisitions,  which  in  all  are  six  in  num- 
ber. It  is  conceived,  that  nothing  of  any  consequence 
in  Dr.  Priestley's  three  sets  of  Letters  now  remains  unan- 
swered. The  author  indeed  is  well  aware,  that  Dr.  Priest- 
ley will  charge  him  with  one  capital  omission.—  That  he 
hath  taken  no  notice  of  any  thing  that  may  be  contained, 
relating  to  the  various  points  of  this  controversy,  in  Dr. 
Priestley's  History  of  Early  Opinions  concerning  Christ  f 
that  large  work,  in  four  volumes,  the  result  of  a  -whole  two- 


XIV 


PREFACE. 


years  study  of  the  writers  of  antiquity,  which,  as  it  hath  been 
published  since  Dr.  Priestley's  last  Letters,  may  be  supposed 
to  contain  better  arguments,  or  at  least  his  old  arguments  in 
a  better  form.  The  only  apology  to  be  made  is,  a  simple  de- 
claration of  the  truth.  Not  conceiving  himself  obliged  to 
engage  in  the  insipid  task  of  reading  so  long  a  book,  with- 
out better  hope  of  information  from  it  than  his  past  ex- 
perience of  the  writer's  knowledge  on  the  subject  gives,  Dr. 
Priestley's  adversary  is  as  ignorant  of  the  contents  of  that 
work,  as  he  could  have  been  had  it  never  been  published.  It 
is  reported  indeed,  that  the  work,  whatever  may  be  its  merits, 
hath  a  very  slow  sale.  Of  consequence,  it  hath  found  but 
few  readers.  The  antagonist  of  Dr.  Priestley,  were  he  better 
acquainted  with  its  contents,  would  still  disdain  to  do  the 
office  of  the  midwife  for  this  laborious  birth.  He  would  not, 
by  an  unnecessary  and  unseasonable  opposition  to  neglected 
arguments,  be  the  instrument  of  drawing  four  volumes, 
fraught  as  the  very  title  imports,  with  pernicious  heretical 
theology,  from  the  obscurity  in  which  they  may  innocently 
rot  in  the  Printer's  warehouse. 


CHARGE 


TO  THE 


CLERGY 


OF  THE 


ARCHDEACONRY  OF  ST.  ALBAN'8, 


CHARGE, 


J/1   REVEREND  BRETHREN1, 

THE  business  of  the  Christian  priesthood,  like  that 
of  every  secular  occupation,  consisting  in  two  branches, 
the  speculative  and  the  practical ;  if  any  of  us,  by  a 
particular  blessing  of  Providence  attending  our  temporal 
fortunes,  are  released  from  the  necessity,  to  which  the 
greater  part  submit,  of  a  severe  and  constant  toil  in  the 
practical  branch  of  the  profession,  as  the  labour  by 
which  they  have  to  earn  their  daily  bread  ;  it  seems  to 
be  our  particular  duty  to  consecrate  the  leisure  we  enjoy, 
if  I  may  borrow  an  expression  from  the  profane  sciences, 
to  the  theory  of  religion.  And  in  the  present  state  of 
religious  learning  in  this  country,  it  should  seem,  that 
the  cultivation  of  that  branch  of  it  which  is  called  sacred 
criticism,  and  particularly  the  elucidation  of  the  text  of 
the  Old  Testament,  by  a  diligent  use  of  the  materials 
which  the  unwearied  industry  of  a  learned  critick,  sup- 
ported by  the  munificence  of  the  best  of  Princes,  hath 
supplied ;  is  the  study  in  which,  of  all  others,  our  ta- 
lents and  our  industry  might  be  best  employed.  It  is, 
however,  to  be  remembered,  that  the  writings  of  the 

3 


£§  A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLERGY. 

Old  Testament  are  only  of  a  secondary  importance ;  for 
the  evidence  which  they  afford  of  the  trutli  of  our  Lord's 
pretensions,  and  for  the  light  which  they  throw  upon  the 
doctrines  of  the  gospel,  which  is  indeed  so  great,  that 
an  inattention  to  these  more  ancient  parts  of  the  code  of 
revelation,  is  likely  to  be  one  principal  cause  of  the 
scepticism  which  unhappily  prevails  among  our  modern 
sectaries,  concerning  the  original  dignity  of  the  Redeem- 
er's nature,  and  the  expiatory  virtue  of  his  sufferings. 
But  in  whatever  degree  the  Jewish  Scriptures  may  be 
useful  for  the  general  confirmation  of  Christianity  ;  it  is 
from  their  relation  to  the  gospel,  to  which,  we  have 
been  told  by  the  highest  authority,  the  Mosaick  dispen- 
sation was  but  a  prelude  or  preparative,  that  they  derive 
the  whole  of  the  importance  which  they  yet  retain.  A 
profound  and  critical  acquaintance  with  them,  is  useful 
only,  as  means  conducive  to  an  end  :  and  in  this,  as  in 
other  cases,  every  solid  advantage  will  be  lost,  that 
might  be  reaped  from  the  improvement  of  the  means,  if, 
in  the  too  assiduous  pursuit  of  these,  we  lose  sight  of 
the  end  to  which  they  should  be  made  subservient.  The 
theology  of  the  Christian  revelation,  is  the  great  object 
to  which  every  other  branch  of  sacred  literature  is  natu- 
rally subordinate.  To  extract  it  from  the  writings  of 
the  apostles  and  evangelists,  connected  with  the  earlier 
revelations  ;  to  assert  and  defend  their  genuine  doctrine ; 
to  preserve  it  entire ;  and  to  maintain  it  in  its  native 
purity,  unadulterated  by  the  additions  of  superstition,  un- 
debased  and  undiminished  by  the  refinements  of  philoso- 
phy: this  is  the  great  business  to  which  those  of  us,  who 
feel  themselves  at  ease  and  in  affluence,  and  masters  of 
the  leisure  which  affluence  affords,  should  consider  their 
talents  and  their  studies  to  be  solemnly  devoted. 


A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLERGY.  ^g 

2.  My  Reverend  Brethren,  I  would  be  understood  to 
speak  with  sentiments  of  respect,  of  those  whom  I  shall 
take  the  liberty  to  call  the  labouring  part  of  the  parochial 
clergy  :  of  those  whose  lives  are  spent  in  a  constant  at- 
tendance on  the  publick  ceremonies  of  external  worship, 
or  in  the  charitable  and  necessary  business  of  instruct- 
ing the  people  of  the  lower  ranks,  in  the  first  principles 
of  the  doctrine  of  Christ.  Of  these  venerable  men,  of 
their  godly  labours,  and  honourable  occupations,  I 
would  be  understood  to  speak  with  reverence  and  re- 
spect. Of  all  the  departments  of  the  sacred  otjjce,  the 
business  of  that  which  it  is  their  lot  to  fill,  is  perhaps  the 
most  immediately  conducive  to  general  edification  :  and 
for  the  zeal  and  ability  with  which  it  is  discharged  by 
them,  they  arc  justly  entitled  to  the  highest  degrees  of 
veneration  and  esteem.  It  is  matter  of  concern  and 
grief  to  every  serious  Christian,  that  their  rewards  in 
this  life  should  but  seldom  correspond,  in  any  fair  pro- 
portion, with  the  worth  of  their  characters,  and  the  im- 
portance of  their  services.  Thanks  be  to  Him,  of  whom 
the  whole  family  is  named,  their  hope  is  full  of  glory. 
It  is  felt,  I  am  persuaded,  by  themselves,  as  the  heaviest 
inconvenience  of  their  present  situation,  that  their  em- 
ployment, useful  and  honourable  as  it  must  ever  be  con- 
fessed  to  be,  partakes  in  some  degree  of  the  nature  of  a 
worldly  business  ;  requiring  a  labour  of  the  body,  and 
a  distracting  intercourse  with  the  world,  which  leave 
little  opportunity  for  private  study  and  solitary  medita- 
tion. In  circumstances  so  unfriendly  to  literary  im- 
provement, it  redounds  highly  to  their  praise  that  they 
are  so  eminently  well  qualified,  as  they  generally  ap- 
prove themselves  to  be,  to  discharge  the  plain  duty  of 
Cat.erhi?t.*,  with  credit  to  themsclvcs;  and  advantage  to 


$0  A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLERGY. 

the  church  of  God.  To  deliver  the  doctrine  of  the  gos  • 
pel  in  that  plain  and  general  way.  which,  if  it  were  to 
meet  with  no  opposition  from  the  disputers  of  the  world, 
might  be  sufficient  to  give  it  its  full  effect  upon  the  heart 
of  the  hearer.  But  occasions  will  from  time  to  time 
arise,  when  the  truth  must  be  not  only  taught,  but  de- 
fended. The  stubborn  infidel  will  raise,  objections  against 
the  first  principles  of  our  faith  :  and  objections  must  be 
answered.  The  restless  spirit  of  scepticism  will  sug- 
gest difficulties  in  the  system,  and  create  doubts  about 
the  particulars  of  the  Christian  doctrine  :  difficulties 
must  be  removed,  and  doubts  must  be  satisfied.  But 
above  all,  the  scruples  must  be  composed,  which  the  re- 
finements of  a  false  philosophy,  patronized  as  they  are 
in  the  present  age,  by  men  no  less  amiable  for  the  gene- 
ral purity  of  their  manners,  than  distinguished  by  their 
scientifick  attainments,  will  be  too  apt  to  raise  in  the 
minds  of  the  weaker  brethren.  And  this  is  the  service 
to  which  they,  whom  the  indulgence  of  Providence  hath 
released  from  the  more  laborious  offices  of  the  priesthood, 
stand  peculiarly  engaged.  To  them,  their  more  occu- 
pied brethren  have  a  right  to  look  up,  in  these  emergen- 
cies, for  support  and  succour  in  the  common  cause.  It  is 
for  them  to  stand  forth  the  champions  of  the  common 
faith,  and  the  advocates  of  their  order.  It  is  for  them 
to  wipe  off  the  aspersions  injuriously  cast  upon  the  sons 
of  the  establishment,  as  uninformed  in  the  true  grounds 
of  the  doctrine  which  they  teach,  or  insincere  in  the  belief 
of  it.  To  this  duty  they  are  indispensibly  obliged,  by 
their  providential  exemption  from  work  of  a  harder  kind. 
It  is  the  proper  business  of  the  station  which  is  allotted 
them  in  Christ's  household,  and  deep  will  be  their  shame, 
and  insupportable  their  punishment,  if,  in  the  great  day 


A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLERGY.  g.j 

of  reckoning  it  should  appear,  that  they  have  received  the 
wages  of  a  service  which  hath  never  heen  performed. 

3.  You  will  easily  conjecture,  that  what  has  led  me 
into  these  reflections  is,  the  extraordinary  attempt  which 
hath  heen  lately  made,  to  unsettle  the  faith,  and  to  break 
up  the  constitution  of  every  ecclesiastical  establishment 
in  Christendom.  Such  is  the  avowed  object  of  a  recent 
publication,  which  bears  the  title  of  "A  History  of  the 
Corruptions  of  Christianity;"  among  which  the  Catholick 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  in  the  author's  opinion,  holds  a 
principal  place.  With  what  success  he  hath  attacked 
this  fundamental  article,  and  how  far  he  hath  been  able 
to  invalidate  the  argument  from  early  and  uniform  tra- 
dition, this  reverend  assembly  will  he  competent  to 
judge,  from  the  brief  view  which  shall  be  laid  before 
them,  of  the  account  which  he  attempts  to  give  j)f  the 
rise  and  progress  of  the  doctrine  in  the  three  first  ages, 
accompanied  with  specimens  of  the  proofs  by  which  his 
pretended  history,  in  this  part  of  it.  is  supported. 

I. 

1.  The  opinion  which  he  maintains,  is  in  general  the 
same  which  was  first,  I  think,  propagated  in  the  last 
century  by  Daniel  Zuicker,  a  Prussian  physician  of  the 
Socinian  persuasion;  and,  upon  the  authority  of  that 
writer,  hath  been  current  ever  since  among  the  Unitarians 
of  this  country.  "That  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  in  the 
form  in  which  it  is  now  maintained,  is  of  no  greater  an- 
tiquity  than  the  Nicene  council :  that  it  is  the  result  of  a 
gradual  corruption  of  the  doctrine  of  the  gospel,  which 
took  its  rise  in  an  opinion  first  advanced  in  the  second 
century,  by  certain  converts  from  the  Platonick  school ; 
who,  expounding  the  beginning  of  St  John's  gospel  by 
the  Platonick  doctrine  of  the  Logo?,  ascribed  a  sort  of 


g$  A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLERGY. 

secondary  divinity  to  our  Saviour,  affirming  that  he  was 
no  other  than  the  second  principle  of  the  Platonick  Triad, 
who  had  assumed  a  human  body  to  converse  with  man  : 
that  before  this  innovation,  of  which  Justin  Martyr  is 
made  the  author,  the  faith  of  the  whole  Christian  church, 
but  particularly  of  the  church  of  Jerusalem,  was  simply 
and  strictly  Unitarian.  The  immediate  disciples  of  the 
apostles  conceived  our  Saviour  to  be  a  man,  whose  ex- 
istence commenced  in  the  womb  of  the  Virgin ;  and  they 
thought  him  in  no  respect  the  object  of  worship.  The 
next  succeeding  race  worshiped  him  indeed,  but  they 
had  however  no  higher  notions  of  his  divinity,  than 
those  which  were  maintained  by  the  followers  of  Arius 
in  the  fourth  century."  In  short,  the  first  race  of  Chris- 
tians, in  Dr  Priestly's  opinion,  were  Unitarians  in  the 
strictest  sense  of  the  word  :  the  second,  Arians.*  As 
Dr  Priestley  follows  Zuicker  in  these  extravagant  asser- 
tions,  so  the  arguments  by  which  he  would  support 
them,  are  in  all  essential  points  the  same  which  were 
alleged  to  the  same  purpose,  either  by  that  writer,  or 
by  Simon  Episcopius.  Episcopius,  though  himself  no 
Socinian,  very  indiscreetly  concurred  with  the  Socinians 
of  his  time  in  maintaining,  that  the  opinion  of  the  mere 
humanity  of  Christ,  had  prevailed  very  generally  in  the 
first  ages,  and  was  never  deemed  heretical  by  the  fa. 
thers  of  the  orthodox  persuasion ;  at  least  not  in  such 
degree,  as  to  exclude  from  the  communion  of  the  church. 
The  opinion,  I  believe,  had  its  rise  in  no  worse  principle 
than  the  charitable  temper  of  the  man,  and  his  just 


*  See  this  brief  statement  ofDr  Priestley's  opinion  defended  against  his  objec- 
tions to  it,  in  the  ISth  of  my  Letters  in  Reply. 


A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLERGY.  %g 

abhorrence  of  the  spirit  of  persecution,  with  which  Chris- 
tians, of  every  denomination,  were  in  his  time  much  in- 
fected :  which  is  indeed  itself,  of  all  heresies,  by  far  the 
most  malignant,  being  that  most  opposite  to  the  general 
philanthropy,  which  is  the  root  of  all  social  virtue,  and 
the  highest  ornament  of  the  Christian  profession.  Epis- 
copius  wished,  as  every  good  man  must  wish,  to  see  a 
general  toleration  established  ;  which  he  thought  could 
not  be  more  effectually  recommended,  than  by  the  ex- 
ample of  the  harmony  which  subsisted  among  Christians 
in  the  earliest  ages.  The  force  of  his  example,  he  would 
naturally  think  improved,  in  proportion  as  the  idea  of  the 
harmony  was  heightened,  as  the  controversies  of  the  first 
Christians  were  magnified  and  multiplied.  These  sen- 
timents, inclined  him  to  credit  as  historians  the  same 
writers,  whom,  as  divines,  he  held  in  little  estimation. 
He  gave  easy  credit  to  Unitarian  writers,  when  they  re- 
presented the  differences  of  opinion  in  the  early  churches, 
as  much  greater  than  ever  really  obtained  ;  and  the  ten- 
derness for  sectaries,  as  more  than  was  ever  practised  ; 
and  while  he  opposed  their  doctrine,  he  vouched  their 
story.  The  purposes  of  charity  had  been  better  served, 
without  injury  to  the  cause  of  truth,  had  the  talents  of 
this  able  writer  been  employed,  to  set  the  doctrine  of 
universal  toleration  on  its  only  firm  and  proper  basis  : 
to  show,  that  although  in  dubious  points  of  doctrine,  the 
judgment  of  antiquity,  wherever  it  is  clear,  must  be  al- 
lowed to  be  decisive  ;  yet  the  just  severity  of  the  primi- 
tive church  towards  the  refractory  hereticks,  whose  vi- 
sionary doctrines,  joined  with  their  contempt  of  apostolick 
authority,  disgraced  the  rising  community,  and  obstruct- 
ed the  propagation  of  ihe  truth;  constitutes  no  example 
for  the  control  of  fair  inquiry,  or  for  the  punishment  of 


^  A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLERGY. 

mere  speculative  heresy  in  these  latter  times  ;  by  any 
harsher  means  than  the  necessary  exclusion  of  dissenters 
from  the  honours  and  emoluments  of  national  establish- 
ments. Had  the  opinion  which  he  chose  to  adopt  been 
true,  Simon  Episcopius,  with  his  scanty  knowledge  of 
ecclesiastical  antiquities,  was  but  ill  qualified  to  main- 
tain it.  False  and  groundless  as  it  was,  his  natural 
acuteness  enabled  him  to  furnish  the  Socinians  of  his 
time,  whose  cause  in  the  doctrinal  part  he  little  thought 
to  serve,  with  the  best  arguments  that  have  ever  been 
produced  on  the  Unitarian  side  of  the  question.  Our 
modern  historian,  in  support  of  his  imaginary  progress 
of  opinions  tVom  the  Unitarian  doctrine  to  the  Nicene 
faith,  hath  produced  few,  if  any  arguments,  which  make 
directly  for  his  purpose,  but  what  are  to  be  found  in  the 
writings  either  of  Zuicker  or  Episcopius.  Nor  is  a 
single  argument  to  be  found  in  the  writings  either  of 
Zuicker  or  Episcopius,  which  is  not  unanswerably  con- 
futed by  our  learned  Dr  George  Bull,  afterwards  Lord 
Bishop  of  St  David's,  in  three  celebrated  treatises, 
which  deserve  the  particular  attention  of  every  one,  who 
would  take  upon  him  to  be  either  a  teacher  or  an  histo- 
rian of  the  Christian  faith.  The  first,  "  A  Defence  of 
the  Nicene  faith  ;"  the  second,  "  The  Judgment  of  the 
Catholick  church,  in  the  first  ages,  concerning  the  necessi- 
ty of  believing  that  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  is  very  God  ;" 
the  third,  "  The  Primitive  and  Apostolical  tradition 
concerning  the  true  Divinity  of  Jesus  Christ." 

2.  It  seems  very  extraordinary,  that  any  one  should 
presume  to  revive  the  defeated  arguments  of  Zuicker  and 
Episcopius,  without  attempting  to  make  them  good  against 
the  objections  of  a  writer  of  Dr  Bull's  eminence.  Nor  is 
it  easy  to  conceive,  what  apology  can  be  made,  for  what 


A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLERGY.  .35 

-should  seem  so  gross  an  insult  on  the  learning  and  dis- 
cernment of  the  age  ;  unless  it  be,  that  Dr.  Priestley 
imagines,  that  although  he  hath  abstained  from  a  parti- 
cular  discussion  of  Dr.  Ball's  arguments,  he  hath  in 
effect  answered  them,  by  the  new  light  which  he  per- 
suades himself  he  has  thrown  upon  the  subject :  that  by 
the  evidence  which  he  thinks  he  hath  brought  of  the 
truth  of  his  own  narrative,  in  every  branch  of  it,  he  sup- 
poses that  he  hath  virtually  replied  to  all  objections  :  that 
he  hath  confirmed  the  assumptions  from  which  Zuicker 
and  Episcopius  reasoned,  which  Dr.  Bull  pretended  to 
deny:  and  that,  by  confirming  their  assumptions,  he  hath 
made  good  their  arguments,  although  he  may  have  taken 
no  notice  of  their  learned  antagonist.     What  new  illus- 
trations the  subject  hath  received  from  Dr.  Priestley's 
labours,  will   best  appear  from  specimens  of  the  argu- 
ments by  which  lie  would  support  his  three  principal 
assumptions  :  namely,  that  the  first  Christians  were  Uni- 
tarians in  the  strictest  sense  of  the  word  ;  that  the  deity 
of  Christ  was  first  taught  by  a  Platonizing  sect;  and  that 
the  doctrine  which  they  introduced,  was  the  very  same 
for  which,  in  a  later  age,  Arius  was  condemned.     If 
his  proof  of  these  fundamental  propositions   should  be 
found  to  rest  upon  precarious  assumptions,  perverted 
history,  misconstrued  and  misapplied  quotations ;  if  his 
facts  should  appear  to  be  confuted  by  his  own  authori- 
ties, and  his  conclusions  to  be  defeated  by  his1  own  ar- 
guments ;  if  the  resemblance  between  the  Christian  and 
the  Platonick  Trinity,  should  appear  to  be  no  mark  of 
corruption  in  the  prevailing  opinions;   the  Catholick 
faith,  which  hath  heretofore  sustained  so  many  rude  as- 
saults, will  hardly  find  its  mortal  wound  in  the  stroke 
which  Dr.  Priestley  imagines  lie  hath  inflicted. 


gg  A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLERfcY. 

3r*The  first  argument  which  is  produced  in  support 
of  the  first  assertion,  "  that  the  faith  of  the  first  Chris- 
tians  was  simply  Unitarian,"  is  built  upon  an  assump- 
tion, which,  could  it  he  proved  to  be  true,  would  indf, ed 
render  the  conclusion  obvious  and  inevitable  :  "  That 
the  doctrine  of  our  Lord's  mere  humanity,  is  the  clear 
doctrine  of  the  Scriptures,  and  that  the  apostles  never 
taught  any  other."*  It  will  easily  be  granted,  that  the 
apostles  never  taught  the  contrary  of  any  doctrine  that 
is  clearly  delivered  in  their  writings  ;  and  that  the  faith 
of  the  first  converts,  was  a  belief  of  neither  more  nor  less 
than  the  apostles  taught.  So  that  the  sense  of  the 
Scriptures  in  any  article  being  once  clearly  ascertained, 
the  argument  from  the  clear  confessed  sense  of  Scripture 
to  the  preaching  of  the  apostles,  and  from  the  preaching 
of  the  apostles  to  the  primitive  faith,  will  be  firm  and 
valid.  But  the  professed  object  of  our  learned  adversa- 
ry's undertaking,  requires  an  argument,  that  should  go 
the  contrary  way  : — from  the  primitive  faith  to  the  sense 
of  the  Scriptures.  It  is  the  professed  object  of  his  un- 
dertaking, to  exhibit  a  view  of  the  gradual  changes  of 
opinions,  in  order  to  ascertain  the  faith  of  the  first  ages : 
and  he  would  ascertain  the  faith  of  the  first  ages,  in 
order  to  settle  the  sense  of  the  Scriptures  in  disputed 
points.  He  is  therefore  not  at  liberty,  to  assume  any 
sense  of  the  Scriptures,  which,  because  it  is  his  own,  he 
may  be  pleased  to  call  the  clear  sense,  for  a  proof  that 
the  original  faith  was  such,  as  would  confirm  the  sense 
he  wishes  to  establish.  His  sense  of  the  Scriptures, 
not  being  acknowledged  by  the  majority  of  the  Chris- 


History  of  Corruptions,  ?ol.i.  p.  6, 


A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLERGY.  $y 

tiau  church,  whatever  may  be  his  own  judgment  of  its 
clearness,  it  can  only  pass  for  a  particular  interpretation. 
When  this  particular  interpretation  is  alleged,  in  proof 
that  the  original  faith  of  the  church  of  Jerusalem  was 
such  as  might  justify  that  interpretation ;  the  middle 
term  of  the  argument  is  no  otherwise  confirmed,  than  by 
an  assumption  of  the  principal  matter  in  debate  :  and  so 
long  as  the  sixth  page  of  the  first  volume  of  Dr  Priestley's 
history  shall  be  extant,  the  masters  of  the  dialectick  art, 
will  be  at  no  loss  for  an  example  of  the  circulating  syl- 
logism. To  Dr  Priestley,  it  may  be  very  clear,  that 
when  St  John,  speaking  of  the  Logos,  of  which  he  had 
already  affirmed,  that  it  was  in  the  beginning,  says, 
"  This  person"  (for  that  is  the  natural  force  of  the  Greek 
pronoun  ovrcr*)  "  This  person  was  in  the  beginning  with 
God  ;  all  things  were  made  by  him,  and  without  him  was 
not  any  thing  made  that  was  made  :"  it  may  be  very  clear 
to  Dr  Priestley,  that  St  John,  speaking  of  the  Logos  as 
of  a  person  who  had  been  from  the  beginning,  and  had 
done  these  great  things  ;  means  to  affirm  that  the  Logos 
is  no  person  ;  nor  is,  otherwise  than  in  a  figurative  sense, 
to  be  called  an  agent  in  any  business  :  that  he  means  to 
contradict  those,  who  held  that  the  Logos  was  any  thing 
more  than  an  attribute  of  the  Divine  mind  ;  to  silence 
them;  to  extinguish  their  profane  innovation,  by  his 
definitive  sentence  upon  the  question  :  and  that  when  he 
speaks  of  eternity,  as  belonging  to  the  Logos  as  a  per- 
son, it  is,  that  this  was  the  most  explicit  way,  in  which 
he  could  give  the  Christian  church  to  understand,  that 
eternity  is  only  accidental  to  the  Logos,  the  substance  to 


*  See  the  third  of  my  Letters  in  Reply,  and  the  Appendix  to  the  Letters,  No.  2. 


S8  A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLEfvGY. 

which  it  properly  belongs,  being  that  inincl  of  which  the 
Logos  itself  is  only  another  attribute.*  It  may  be  very 
clear  to  Dr  Priestley's  apprehension,  that  when  3t  Paul 
affirms  of  Christ,  that  he  is  the  "  image  of  the  invisible 
God,  the  first  born  of  every  creature,  by  whom  all  things 
were  created/'"  and  explains  in  what  extent  the  words 
"  all  things"  are  to  be  understood,  by  an  enumeration 
of  the  constituent  parts,  and  governing  powers  of  the 
universe  ;  *<  things  in  heaven  and  things  in  earth,  visible 
and  invisible,  whether  they  he  thrones,  or  dominions,  or 
principalities,  or  powers;  all  things  were  created  by  him 
and  for  him,  and  he  is  before  all  things,  and  by  him  all 
things  consist  ;"f  it  may  be  very  clear  to  Dr  Priestley, 
that  St  Paul,  in  these  expressions,  wrould  be  understood 
to  assert,  that  Christ  was  nothing  more  than  a  man,  and 
was  no  otherwise  the  creator  of  any  thing,  than  as  he 
was  the  founder  of  the  Christian  church.  All  this  may 
be  very  clear  to  Dr  Priestley's  apprehension ;  and  equal 
to  the  clearness  of  the  apprehension,  which  he  imagines 
lie  enjoys,  that  this  was  the  doctrine  of  the  apostles,  will 
be  the  confidence  of  his  persuasion,  that  it  wras  also  the 
faith  of  their  first  converts.  But  to  others,  who  have  not 
the  sagacity  to  discern,  that  the  true  meaning  of  an  in- 
spired writer  must  be  the  reverse  of  the  natural  and  ob- 
vious sense  of  the  expressions  which  he  employs,  the 
force  of  the  conclusion,  that  the  primitive  Christians 
could  not  believe  our  Lord  to  be  more  than  a  mere  man, 
because  the  apostles  had  told  them  he  was  the  Creator 
of  the  universe,  will  be  little  understood. 


*  Hist,  of  Corrup.  vol.  i.p  10,  12. 
f  Coloss.  i.  15, 17. 


A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLERGY.  *>g 

4.  Another  argument  is  built  upon  a  pretended  silence 
of  St  John,  about  the  error  of  those  who  maintained  the 
mere  humanity  of  Christ,*  in  his  first  epistle  :  in  which 
he  is  supposed  to  censure  those,  who  believed  Christ  to 
be  a  man  only  in  appearance,  in  the  severest  manner ; 
but  upon  Uiose  who  believed  him  to  be   nothing  more 
than  man,  the  apostle,  as  he  is  understood  by  Dr  Priest- 
ley, passes  no  censure.     From  which  it  is  to  be  conclu- 
ded, that  the  latter  opinion  is  no  error,  but  the  very 
truth  of  the  gospel. 

5.  But  here  the  question  is,  whether  the  opinion  of 
Christ's  mere  humanity  is  really  passed  over  by  St 
John,  as  Dr  Priestley  supposes,  unccnsured  and  unno- 
ticed.    This  question  will  be  differently  resolved,  ac- 
cording as  diilcrent  interpretations  of  the  apostle's  ex- 
pressions are  adopted.     This  argument,  therefore,  is  of 
the  same  complexion  with  the  former,  and  labours  under 
the  same  defect.     A  particular  sense  of  the  epistle  is 
alleged,  in  proof  of  a  pretended  fact ;  which  fact  must 
itself  support  the  interpretation.     "Every  spirit,"  says 
St  John,  "  which  confesses  that  Jesus  Christ  is  come  in 
the  flesh,  is  of  God."f     "  That  is,"  says  Dr  Priestley, 
"  every  spirit  is  of  God,  that  confesses  that  Jesus  Christ 
is  truly  a  man."}     But  it  should  seem,  that  the  propo- 
sition that  he  was  truly  a  man,  if  he  was  nothing  more 
than  man,  is  very  awkwardly  and  unnaturally  expressed 
by  the  phrase  of  his  "  coming  in  the  flesh  :"  for  in  what 
other  way  was  it  possible  for  a  mere  man  to  come  ?  The 
turn  of  the  expression  seems  to  lead  to  the  notion  of  a 


*  Hist,  of  Corrap.  vol.  i.  p.  10,  IS ;  and  vol.  ii.  p.  43 J, 

t  1  John  iv.  3. 

i  Hist  of  Corrap.  vol.  i.  p.  13. 


30  A  CHARGE  TO  T1IL  CL 

being,  who  had  his  choice  of  different  ways  of  coining  ^ 
a  notion  which  is  implied  in  other  passages  of  holy  writ, 
and  is  explicitly  expressed  in  a  book  little  inferior  in  au- 
thority to  the  canonical  writings  ;  in  the  first  epistle  of 
Clemens  Romanus  ;  in  a  passage  of  that  epistle  which  Dr 
Priestley,  somewhat  unfortunately  for  his  cause,  hath 
chosen  for  the  basis  of  an  argument  of  that  holy  father's 
heterodoxy.  "The  sceptre  of  the  majesty  of  God," 
says  Clemens,  "  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  came  not  in  the 
pomp  of  pride  and  arrogance,  although  he  had  it  in  his 
yower"*  Clemens,  it  seems,  conceived,  that  the  man. 
ner  of  coming,  was  in  the  power  and  choice  of  the  per- 
son who  was  to  come.  St  John's  expressions  evidently 
lead  to  the  same  notion.  It  should  seem,  therefore,  that 
St  John's  assertions,  concerning  the  spirits  that  maintain 
or  deny  that  Jesus  is  come  in  the  flesh,  that  the  one  are 
of  God,  and  the  other  of  antichrist,  were  levelled,  not 
singly  at  the  heresy  of  the  Docetce,  as  Dr  Priestley  im- 
agines, but  equally  at  that  and  at  another  branch  of  the 
Gnostick  heresy,  which  divided  Jesus  Christ  into  two 
persons :  Jesus,  who  was  supposed  to  be  a  mere  man, 
the  son  of  Mary  by  her  husband  Joseph  ;  and  the  Christ, 
a  divine  being,  who  was  considered  as  the  genius,  or 
tutelary  angel  of  the  man  ;  not  however  so  united  with 
the  man,  as  to  constitute  one  person,  or  to  partake  of  the 
man's  sufferings.  The  first  epistle  of  St  John,  asserts 
the  doctrine  of  a  true  and  proper  incarnation,  in  opposi- 
tion to  the  extravagancies  of  both  these  sects.  The 
apostle  makes  the  acknowledgment  of  the  incarnation, 
in  which  both  an  antecedent  divinity  and  an  assumed 


Chap.  xvi. 


A  CHARGE  TO  TUB  CLERGY.  gj 

humanity  are  implied,  the  criterion  by  which  the  true 
teachers  are  to  be  distinguished  from  the  false.  And  in 
the  positive  assertion  of  the  incarnation,  and  the  express 
censure  of  the  opposite  doctrine  as  antichristian,  he  re- 
probates the  notion  of  Christ's  mere  humanity,  in  the 
only  sense  in  which  we  have  any  certain  evidence  that 
he  lived  to  see  it  maintained.  It  appears,  therefore, 
that  to  confess  that  "  Jesus  Christ  is  come  in  the  flesh,"* 
and  to  affirm  that  Jesus  Christ  is  truly  a  man,  are  pro- 
positions not  perfectly  equivalent.  Dr  Priestley  indeed 
hath  shown  himself  very  sensible  of  the  difference.  He 
would  not  otherwise  have  found  it  necessary,  for  the 
improvement  of  his  argument,  in  reciting  the  third  verse 
of  the  fourth  chapter  of  St  John's  first  epistle,  to  change 
the  expressions  which  he  found  in  the  publick  transla- 
tion, for  others  which  correspond  far  less  exactly  with 
the  Greek  text.  For  the  words  "Jesus  Christ  is  come 
in  the  flesh,"  Dr  Priestley  substitutes  these,  "Jesus 
Christ  is  come  of  the  flesh."f  That  he  is  come  in  the 
flesh,  and  that  he  is  come  of  the  flesh,  are  two  very  dis- 
tinct propositions.  The  one  affirms  an  incarnation  ;  the 
other  a  mortal  extraction.  The  first  is  St  John's  asser- 
tion ;  the  second  is  Dr  Priestley's.  Perhaps  Dr  Priest- 
ley  hath  discovered  of  St  John  as  of  St  Paul,  that  his 
reasoning  is  sometimes  inconcltisive.J  and  his  language 
inaccurate  :  and  he  might  think  it  no  unwarrantable 
liberty  to  correct  an  expression,  which,  as  not  perfectly 
corresponding  with  his  own  system,  he  could  not  en- 


*  1  John  iv.  2.    Lmr  Xf/;ov  «V 
f  Hist,  of  Corrup.  \ol.  i.  p.  10.  line  15. 

$  " .  I  think  I  have  shown  that  the  apostle  Paul  often  rejuons  inconciu- 

Dr.  P's.  Hist,  of  Currup.  yol.  u.  p.  370. 


32  A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLEIU.V. 

tirely  approve.  It  would  have  been  but  fair  to  ad\ei- 
tise  his  readers  of  so  capital  an  emendation ;  an  emen- 
dation for  which  no  support  is  to  be  found  in  the,  Greek 
text,  nor  even  in  the  varieties  of  any  manuscripts.  Wo 
are  informed  indeed  by  Socrates  the  historian,*  (and 
liis  testimony  is  confirmed  by  the  Latin  of  the  vulgate,) 
of  a  very  considerable  variety  of  some  of  the  ancient 
manuscripts.  But  it  is  such  as  only  serves  to  prove, 
that  the  principal  object  of  this  epistle  of  St  John,  was 
understood  in  the  primitive  church,  to  be  the  confutation 
of  the  Cerinthian  Gnosticks ;  the  sect  which  divided 
Christ  into  two  persons,  of  which  they  made  Jesus  a 
mere  man  ;  differing  in  this,  essentially  from  the  Docetce, 
who  made  the  body  of  the  man  Jesus  a  mere  phantom. 

0,  And  this  view  of  St  John's  epistle,  receives  a 
further  confirmation  from  the  genuine  epistles  of  Ignatius. 
In  these,  the  error  of  the  fiocetce,  which  Dr  Priestley 
supposes  to  be  the  sole  object  of  St  John's  epistle,  is 
indeed  particularly  censured.  But  lest,  in  asserting  the 
truth  of  our  Lord's  humanity,  he  should  be  understood 
to  support  the  opinion  of  his  mere  humanity,  the  holy 
Father  hardly  ever  mentions  Christ,  without  introducing 
some  explicit  assertion  of  his  Divinity,  or  without  join- 
ing with  the  name  of  Christ,  some  epithet  in  which  it  is 
implied. 

7.  The  mention  of  Ignatius  having  occurred,  it  were 
unpardonable  not  to  suggest  to  the  recollection  of  this 
learned  assembly,  one  passage  in  particular  in  the  epistle 
to  the  Magnesians,  in  which  the  eternal  existence  of  the 
Word,  as  a  distinct  person  from  the  Father,  is  asserted 


»  Lib.  rii.  c.  52. 


A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLERGY.  33 

in  terms,  which,  though  highly  figurative,  are  perfectly 
unequivocal :  There  is  one  God,  who  hath  manifested 
himself  through  Jesus  Christ  his  Son,  who  is  his  eternal 
Word,  who  came  not  forth  from  silence."*  The  name 
of  the  Logos,  led  the  early  fathers  to  conceive  the  gene- 
ration of  the  Son  as  an  utterance ;  or,  at  least,  to  speak 
of  it  under  that  figure  ;  as  on  the  contrary,  the  hereticks, 
who  denied  the  eternity  of  the  Son,  described  the  period 
preceding  his  generation  as  a  time  of  silence.f  Under 
that  figure,  Ignatius  speaks  of  the  generation  of  the  Sou 
in  this  passage  :  and  he  affirms,  that  no  period  of  silence 
had  preceded  the  utterance  of  the  eternal  Word.  Or,  if 
it  should  seem  more  reasonable  to  suppose  an  allusion, 
in  these  expressions  of  Ignatius,  to  the  Sige  of  the 
Gnosticks,  the  consort  of  their  Buthos,  upon  whom  the 
^Eons  were  engendered  ;  and  to  understand  the  holy 
father  as  maintaining  the  immediate  connexion  of  the 
Father  and  the  Son,  unbroken  by  the  intervention  of 
any  such  intermediate  intelligencies,  as  the  impious  the- 
ogony  of  the  Gnosticks  interposed ;  still  the  eternity  of 
the  Son  is  asserted.  For  the  passage,  in  this  view  of  it, 
amounts  to  this  disjunctive  proposition  :  "  The  Son's 
existence  holds  not  of  the  Father's  by  any  such  remote 
relation  as  these  fabulous  genealogies  describe  ;  but  he 
is  the  eternal  Logos  of  the  Paternal  mind."  According 
to  either  interpretation,  the  passage  contains  an  evident 
assertion  of  the  divinity  of  the  Son  of  God.  And  this 
assertion  being  found  in  the  writings  of  Ignatius,  tlie 


I»«  X^c<{  T*  uat  *(;?« 
&'*  OLTS  ftyw  T04«A^a>y.     Ing.  ad.  Magn.  sec.  8. 

f  So  Marcelkis  of  Ancyra :— U^  y&p  TJ»J  f;ifti* 
«  xoc,  *v  Ti»  &&  t»  Ac>«  O'VTCC.    Euseb.  contra  Mar«eH.j>.  3Q 

0 


gijj  A  CHAKtiti  'JO  THE  CLBilGY. 

familiar  friend  and  companion  of  the  apostles,  who  suf- 
fered martyrdom  so  early  as  in  the  sixteenth  year  of  the 
second  century,  and  had  been  appointed  to  the  bishop, 
rick  of  Antioch  full  thirty  years  before ;  it  is  an  unan- 
swerable confutation  of  our  author's  confident  assertions, 
that  "  we  find  nothing  like  divinity  ascribed  to  Jesus 
Christ  before  Justin  martyr,"*  and  "that  all  the  ear- 
ly fathers  speak  of  Christ,  as  not  having  existed  al- 
ways ."f 

8.  We  have  seen  the  sort  and  fashion  of  the  argu- 
ment, which,  in  proof  of  his  first  assertion,  Dr  Priestley 
builds  on  holy  writ.     Let  us  take  a  view  of  those  which 
he  hath  drawn  from  other  writers. 

9.  One  principal  argument, "  that  the  primitive  church 
of  Jerusalem  was  properly  Unitarian,"  maintaining  the 
simple  humanity  of  Christ,  is  this;—"  Athanasius  him- 
self was  so  far  from  denying  it,"  says  Dr  Priestley, 
"  that  he  endeavours  to  account  for  it,  by  saying," — 
"  that  all  the  Jews  were  so  firmly  persuaded  that  their 
Messiah  was  to  be  nothing  more  than  a  man  like  them- 
selves,  that  the  apostles  were  obliged  to  use  great  cau- 
tion in  divulging  the  doctrine  of  the  proper  divinity  of 
Christ."*      The  latter  clause  of  the  sentence,  which 
contains  what  Athanasius  is  supposed  to  have  said,  is 
marked  with  inverted  commas ;  which  should  seem  to 
intimate,  that  it  is  an  exact  translation  of  some  passage 
in  the  holy  father's  writings  :  and  the  lower  margin  of 
Dr  Priestleys's  book,  refers  to  Athanasius's  celebrated 
piece  on  the  orthodoxy  of  his  predecessor,  Dionysiue. 


*  Hist,  of  Corrup.  vol.  i.  p.  32. 

f  Ibid.  vol.  i.  p.  42. 

£  Hist,  of  Corrup,  rol.  \,  p.  IS. 


A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLERfcY.  3^ 

3fow  in  this  piece  upon  the  orthodoxy  of  Bionysius, 
Athanasius  no  where,  I  confess,  denies  that  the  primi- 
tive church  of  Jerusalem  was  Unitarian.  Nor,  on  the 
other  hand,  do  I  recollect  that  Dr  Priestley  hath  as- 
serted it,  in  any  part  of  his  "  History  of  Electricity." 
The  truth  is,  that  in  either  of  these  valuable  works, 
the  faith  of  the  primitive  church  of  Jerusalem  never 
comes  in  question.  In  the  defence  of  Dionysius,  not  a 
single  passage  is  to  be  found,  which  may  be  fairly  un- 
derstood as  a  tacit  confession,  that  the  primitive  faith 
of  the  church  of  Jerusalem  was  Unitarian  :  much  less 
is  there  any  attempt  to  account  for  its  supposed  hetero- 
doxy. Athanasius  says  indeed  of  the  Jews  of  the  apos- 
tolick  age,  that  is,  of  the  unbelieving  Jews,  (for  Atha- 
nasius  is  a  writer  who  calls  things  by  their  names ; 
and  when  he  speaks  of  Jews,  means  not,  as  Dr  Priestley 
would  persuade  us,*  Jewish  Christians,  except  when 
he  sarcastically  gives  the  Arians  the  name  of  Jews,  as 
resembling  the  Jews,  in  his  judgment,  in  an  obstinate 
denial  of  the  Lord  who  bought  them;  but  otherwise, 
when  he  speaks  his  usual,  plain,  unfigured  language, 
the  unconverted  Jews  of  the  apostolick  age  are  they,  of 
whom  he  says,)  that  they  had  so  little  insight  into  the 
true  meaning  of  the  prophecies,  as  to  look  for  nothing 
more  than  a  MAN  in  the  promised  Messiah.  He  says, 
that  this  error  of  the  Jews  had  been  the  means  of  spread- 
ing the  like  mistake  among  the  Gentiles  ;  meaning  pro- 
bably the  proselytes  of  the  Gate ;  who,  acknowledging 
in  some  degree  the  divinity  of-  the  Jewish  Scriptures, 
looked  for  the  completion  of  the  prophecies,  and  were 


Hist  of  Cornsp.  vol.  U.  p.  456. 


£g  *  CHARGE  TO  THE 

the  first  Gentiles  to  whom  the  preaching  of  the  apos- 
tles was  addressed.     These  Gentiles,  with  something 
of  the  Jewish  faith,  it  may  easily  be  supposed,  had 
imbibed  many  of  the  Jewish  errors  ;  and  among  others, 
as  Athanasius  imagines,  the  expectation  of  a  Messiah 
of  mortal  extraction.     This  general  mistake,  he  says, 
made  it  necessary,  that  the  apostles,  in  their  first  pub- 
lick  sermons,  should  insist  largely  on  the  miracles  of 
our  Saviour's  life  on  earth,  before  they  entered  into  a 
detail  of  the  particulars  of  the  gospel  doctrine,  or  ex- 
plained  what  sort  of  person  the  promised  Messiah  was 
to  be,  and  Jesus  was.     For  their  doctrine  upon  that  ar- 
ticle was  not  likely  to  meet  with  credit,  till  their  divine 
commission  to  teach  it  was   acknowledged,  and  their 
Master's  general  claim  to  the  character  of  the  Messiah, 
whatever  that  might  be,  previously  admitted.     The  ex- 
ample of  the  apostles'  practice  in  this  particular  is  alle- 
ged, to  show  what  prudence  requires  of  every  preacher 
of  the  gospel ;  who  must  allow  himself  to  be  determined 
in  the  arrangement  of  his  matter,  the  choice  of  his  topicks, 
and  the  composition  of  his  language,  by  the  degree  of 
previous  knowledge,  and  the  state  of  opinions,  which 
may  actually  obtain  among  those  to  whom  his  instruc- 
tions are  addressed.     What  the  ignorant  will  most  easi- 
ly apprehend,  must  be  first  taught :  those  points,  which 
are  supposed  to  be  most  generally  misunderstood,  must 
be  most  particularly  explained  :  and  the  truth  must  be 
conveyed  in  that  language,  which  may  the  most  evident- 
ly show  its  disagreement  with  any  false  opinions,  to 
which  the  hearer  may  be  particularly  addicted.    Atha. 
nasius  contends,  that  upon  these  principles  Dionysius 
was  to  be  justified,  if  he  dwelt  more  on  the  topick  of 
our  Lord's  humiliation,  than  on  that  of  his  divinity : 


A  CI1AKGE  TO  THE  CLERGY.  37 

the  Sabellian  heresy  being  the  error  with  which  Diony- 
sius was  engaged.      The  consideration  that  the  Son 
became  man,  afforded  the  most  obvious  proof  that  he 
was  not  the  Father:  and  the  Sabellians  were  to  be 
convinced,  that  the  Word  was  made  flesh,  gross,  corrup- 
tible  flesh,  before  they  could  be  brought  to  acknowledge 
that  he  was  God  of  God.     Athanasius  shows,  that,  in 
the  controversy  with  these  hereticks,  Dionysius  was  in- 
evitably led  to  the  use  of  expressions,  which  the  Ariau 
party  interpreted  in  their  own  favour ;  though  Diony- 
sius always  disclaimed  the  sense,  to  which  his  words 
were  wrested.      He  contends,  that  to  tax  Dionysius 
with  a  propensity  to  the  Arian  party,  on  account  of 
these  expressions,  were  no  less  unreasonable  and  inju- 
rious, than  it  would  be  to  entertain  the  like  suspicion 
of  the  apostles  themselves ;  because  they  had  found  it 
necessary  to  persuade  the  Jews,  that  Jesus  had  been 
approved  of  God,  by  signs  and  wonders,  as  a  man, 
before  they  could  hope  to  persuade  them,  that  he  was 
so  much  more  than  man,  that  his  being  found  in  fashion 
as  a  man,  was  really  the  most  extraordinary  part  of  his 
history  and  character.     It  is  in  no  other  way  than  this, 
that  Athanasius  speaks  of  the  apostles,  as  teaching  the 
Jews  the  humanity  of  Christ.     The  holy  father  never 
speaks   of  any  caution  which  they  used  in  divulging 
the  doctrine  of  his  full  divinity;  unless  an  historian's 
distribution  of  the  matter  of  his  narrative,  or  a  master's 
accommodation  of  his  lessons  to  the  previous  attainments 
of  his  pupils,  is  to  be  called  a  caution  of  divulging, 
what,  in  the  natural  order  of  tradition,  is  to  be  the  last 
disclosed.     Was  it  ever  said  of  Livy,  that  he  relates 
the  tragedy  of  Lucretia's  death,  from  a  caution  of  divul- 
ging the  expulsion  of  the  Tarquia*?    Of  Porphyry, 


38  A  CHARGE  TO  TUB  CLERGV. 

that  he  treats  of  the  five  words,  from  a  caution  of  divul- 
ging the  doctrine  of  the  Categories  ?  The  beginning  of 
every  story  must  be  first  told — The  easiest  part  of  ev- 
ery science  must  be  first  taught.  Of  the  great  ability 
and  judgment,  with  which  the  apostles  conducted  the 
first  preaching  of  the  gospel ;  of  their  happy  art  in  tha 
perspicuous  arrangement  of  their  lofty  argument ;  with 
what  readiness  they  led  their  catechumens  on,  from  the 
simplest  principles  to  the  highest  mysteries  ;  of  this  con- 
summate ability  of  the  apostles  in  the  capacity  of  teach- 
ers, Athanasius  speaks  with  due  commendation.  Their 
caution  he  never  mentions.  On  the  contrary,  the  rapid 
progress  of  their  instruction,  how  they  passed  at  once 
from  the  detail  of  our  Lord's  life  on  earth,  to  the  mys- 
tery of  his  Godhead,  is  one  principal  branch  of  his  en- 
comium. 1  wish  that  Dr  Priestley  had  produced  the 
passage,  in  which  he  thinks  the  apostles  are  taxed  with 
caution  ;  and  of  which  he  certainly  imagines  (he  would 
not  otherwise  have  led  his  reader  to  imagine)  he  hath 
given  an  exact  translation.* 

10.  Nearly  allied  to  this  argument  from  Athanasius's 
omissions  to  deny^  is  another  from  Epiphanius's  omission 
io  assert.  "  Epiphanius,  in  his  account  of  the  Naza- 
renes — makes  no  mention  of  any  of  them  believing  the 
divinity  of  Christ  in  any  sense  of  the  word."f  It  is 
granted.  Epiphanius,  in  his  account  of  these  ancient 
hereticks,f  makes  indeed  no  mention,  that  they  believed 


*  See  the  passage  produced  and  critical!)'  examined,  in  the  fourth  of  Dr  Priestley's 
first  Letters  to  me,  the  eleventh  of  my  Letters  in  reply,  and  the  tenth  of  Dr  Priest- 
ley's second  Letters;  and  in  my  remarks  upon  Dr  Priestley's  seeond  Letters,— 
Part  II.  chap.  i.  sec.  11. 

|  Hist,  of  Corruy.  vol.  i,  p.  8. 

*  H»res.  29. 


A  CHARGE  TO  THK  CLERGY.  39 

the  divinity  of  Christ  in  any  sense  of  the  word.  But 
what  is  this  no-mention  which  Epiphanius  makes,  and 
of  what  importance  is  it  to  our  author's  system?  It  is 
only  that  Epiphanius  confesses,  that  he  had  no  certain 
information,  what  the  opinion  of  the  Nazarenes  might 
be  upon  this  article.  He  had  described  them  in  general 
as  a  sect  half  Jew  and  half  Christian  :  not  Jews,  because 
they  had  something  of  a  belief  in  Christ :  not  Christians, 
because  they  lived  in  bondage  to  the  ritual  law.  "But 
concerning  Christ,"  he  says,  « I  cannot  say  whether 
they  think  him  a  mere  man  ;  or  affirm,  as  the  truth  is, 
that  he  was  begotten  of  Mary  by  the  Holy  Ghost."*  It 
is  thus,  and  thus  only,  that  Kpiphanius  makes  no  men- 
tion of  the  belief  of  the  Nazarenes  in  Christ's  divinity. 
But  he  equally  makes  no  mention  of  their  disbelief. 
And  had  it  been  Dr  Priestley's  point  to  prove,  that  tho 
Nazarenes  held  the  Nicene  faith  upon  the  subject  of  tha. 
Trinity,  he  might  have  alleged,  with  equal  fairness 
and  propriety,  Epiphanius's  no. mention  of  their  hete- 
rodoxy. 

It.  Indeed,  that  they  were  believers  in  our  Lord's 
divinity,  were  the  fairer  conclusion  from  the  neutrality 
of  Epiphanius's  evidence.  It  was  little  the  temper  of 
the  age  in  which  Epiphanius  lived ;  it  was  lit  le  the 
temper  of  Epiphanius,  to  think  or  to  speak  favourably 
of  those  who  w  ere  deemed  hereticks.  It  was  rather  the 
practice  to  aggravate  and  to  multiply  their  errors,  and 
to  vilify  their  characters :  to  charge  them  upon  the 


ef«,  tin  u' 

a,  flit 


^0  A  CHARGE  TO  THt  CLERGY. 

slightest  grounds  with  every  enormity,  both  in  faith  and 
practice.  It  is  very  unlikely,  that  Epiphanius  would 
have  been  so  tender  of  the  reputation  of  these  Nazarenes, 
as  to  confess  his  want  of  information  about  their  opinions 
of  the  nature  of  Christ,  had  there  been  the  least  ground 
to  suspect,  or  had  there  been  so  much  as  a  suspi- 
cion current  in  his  times,  although  it  had  been  founded 
only  on  a  general  bad  opinion  of  the  sect,  that  they 
were  heretical  in  this  article.  A  general  clamour,  or 
the  bare  assertion  of  an  earlier  writer,  would  have  fixed 
the  imputation,  without  any  nice  inquiry  into  the  evi- 
dence by  which  the  charge  might  be  supported.  And  since 
Epiphanius  confesses,  that  he  had  no  ground  to  say  that 
these  Nazarenes  held  Christ  to  be  a  mere  man ;  the  pre- 
sumption is,  that  he  ought  to  have  said,  that  they  affirmed, 
as  the  truth  is,  that  he  was  begotten  of  Mary,  by  the  Holy 
Ghost.  But  to  affirm,  "  as  the  truth  is,  that  he  was  begot- 
ten of  Mary,  by  the  Holy  Ghost,"  in  Epiphanius's  sense 
of  those  words,  was  a  full  confession  of  his  divinity.  So 
that,  if  the  opinions  of  these  Nazarenes  be  of  any  im- 
portance for  ascertaining  the  primitive  faith  ;  and  con- 
jectures are  to  be  drawn,  concerning  their  opinions,  from 
Epiphanius's  profession  of  his  want  of  information  ;  the 
fair  conjecture,  is  the  opposite  of  Dr  Priestley's :  namely, 
that  the  Nazarenes  homologated  with  the  church,  as  its 
opinions  stood  in  the  age  of  Epiphanius,  when  I  suppose 
he  will  allow  it  to  have  been  far  gone  from  the  primitive 
purity  of  his  Unitarian  faith ;  with  this  corrupt  church, 
as  Dr  Priestley  deems  it,  his  friends,  the  Nazarenes, 
homologated  upon  the  article  of  Christ's  divinity. 

12.  But  after  all,  of  what  importance  is  the  opinion 
of  these  Nazarenes  ?  Or  how  may  the  Catholick  tradi- 
tion be  affected  by  the  singularities  of  a  sect  ?  Of  a  sect 


A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLERGY.  ^ 

which  lay  under  the  censure  of  the  church  as  heretical? 
Attend,  my  Reverend  Brethren.     It  is  in  this  that  ws 
have  been  so  long,  I  believe  I  ought  to  add,  so  fatally 
mistaken.    The  Nazarenes  were  never  censured  !  They 
were  no  sectaries !  They  were  the  very  first,  and  be- 
cause  the  first,  they  were  the  purest,  the  very  best  of 
Christians  !  Nazarene   was  the  ancient  name  of  the 
Jewish  Christians  !*  Of  the  first  members  of  the  primi- 
tive church  of  Jerusalem — that  original,  parent  church, 
the  mother  of  us  all ;  where  James  the  brother  of  our 
Lord  was  bishop !  In  the  opinions  therefore  of  these 
Nazarenes,  we  have  the   opinions  of  those  first  Chris- 
tians, who  received,  not  only  the  baptismal  ablution,  but 
the  illumination  of  the  Spirit,  at  the  hands  of  the  apos- 
tles !  You  seem  to  ask  me,  by  what  evidence  this  im- 
portant discovery  is  confirmed  ?  By  no  evidence.     The 
thing  is  not  proved.     It  is  asserted.     In  philosophical 
subjects  Dr  Priestley  would  be  the  last  to  reason  from 
principles  assumed  without  proof.     But  in  divinity  and 
ecclesiastical  history,  he  expects  that  his  own  assertion, 
or  that  of  writers  of  his  own  persuasion,  however  unin- 
formed or  prejudiced,  should  pass  with  the  whole  Chris- 
tian world  for  proof  of  the  boldest  assumptions.     The 
Nazarenes,  it  is  confessed,  were  the  progeny  of  the  first 
Christians  of  the  church  of  Jerusalem.     But  the  name 
of  Nazarene,  you  will  bear  me  witness,  was  never  heard 
of  in  the  Christian  church,  as  descriptive  of  the  Jewish 
Christians,  before  their  settlement  in  the  northren  parts 
of  Galilee,  upon  the  banishment  of  the  Jews  from  Jeru- 
salem, in  the  reign  of  Adrian.f     The  Hebrews,  and  they 


•  — —  the  Nazarenes  (and  the  Jewish  Christiana  never  went  by  any  other 
same.)  Hist.  Corrup.  vol.  i.  p.  8. 

f  See  the  last  paragraph  of  the  sixth  of  my  Letters  in  reply,  and  the  seventh  of 
those  Letters,  sec.  5, 

6 


4£  A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLE1U.Y. 

cfthe  circumcision,  were  the  earlier  names,  by  which 
the  Jewish  converts,  who  formed  the  church  of  Jerusa- 
salera,  had  been  distinguished  from  the  Christians  of  the 
Gentiles.  Their  descendants,  the  Nazarenes,  were  at 
first  perhaps  heretical  but  in  a  single  article  ;  in  main- 
taining the  necessity  of  the  observance  of  the  Mosaick 
law,  for  the  attainment  of  salvation  under  the  gospel : 
whereas,  their  ancestors  had  indeed  themselves  adhered 
to  their  old  law,  but  had  declared  against  the  absurdity 
cf  exacting  a  submission  to  the  ceremonial  part  of  it, 
from  the  Gentile  converts.  By  degrees,  however,  these 
Nazarenes  declined  so  far  from  the  pure  faith  of  that 
first  race  of  Christians,  from  which  they  boasted  their 
descent,  that  in  Jerome's  time,  they  were  become  here- 
tical in  that  degree,  that  Jerome  considered  them  as  a 
Jewish  sect  rather  than  a  Christian.  "  To  this  day," 
says  Jerome,  'l  a  heresy  prevails  among  the  Jews  in  all 
the  synagogues  of  the  east,  which  is  called  that  of  the 
Minsai,  who  commonly  go  by  the  name  of  Nazarenes : 
who  believe  in  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  born  of  the 
Virgin ;  and  say  that  he  was  the  person  who  suffered 
under  Pontius  Pilate,  and  rose  again  ;  in  whom  we  our- 
selves  believe.  But  from  a  desire  of  being  Jews  and 
Christians  both  at  once,  they  are  neither  Jews  nor 
Christians."* 

13.  It  is  rather  for  the  sake  of  general  truth,  than  for 
the  attainment  of  victory  in  the  present  argument,  that 
I  am  desirous  to  maintain  the  distinction  which  was 
ever  made,  till  Zuicker  attempted  to  confound  it,  be- 


*  Epist.  &d  Augustinum  de  disidio  Petri  et  Pauli.  torn.  iii.  fol.  155.    B.  edit. 
Froben. 


A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLERGY.  ^g 

tween  the  primitive  church  of  Jerusalem  and  the  sect  of 
the  Nazarenes,  its  heretical  offspring.  In  the  Trinita- 
rian controversy,  the  distinction  is  of  little  importance ; 
or  rather,  it  would  be  of  advantage  to  the  argument  of 
the  orthodox  party,  if  our  faith  needed  other  support, 
than  that  which  the  plain  sense  of  the  Scriptures,  and 
the  whole  tenor  of  ecclesiastical  history  supply:  it  would 
be  of  singular  advantage  to  our  argument,  that  Dr 
Priestley  should  be  able  to  establish  Zuicker's  extrava- 
gant position,  that  these  Nazarenes  were  no  other  than 
the  original  members  of  the  Hebrew  church.  Whoever 
they  were,  their  orthodoxy,  in  the  article  of  our  Lord's 
divinity,  is  notorious.  It  is  attested  by  most  of  the 
writers  of  antiquity  that  mention  them.  It  is  acknowl- 
edged by  Jerome,  at  the  very  same  time  that  he  taxes 
them  with  the  grossest  heresy  in  other  points.  And 
were  no  express  testimony  to  be  produced,  still  it  would 
be  the  fair  and  probable  conclusion,  from  that  very  pas- 
sage of  Epiphanius,  upon  which  Dr  Priestley  would 
build  the  contrary  opinion.  If  therefore  it  could  be  pro- 
ved, that  these  Nazarenes  really  were  what  Dr  Priestley 
hath  been  taught  by  Zuicker  to  believe,  the  first  con- 
verts of  the  circumcision  ;  we  who  maintan  the  full  di- 
vinity of  Christ,  should  find,  in  the  confession  of  the 
Nazarenes,  the  verdict  of  those  first  Christians  in  our 
favour.  But  since  the  fact  is,  that  they  were  an  hereti- 
cal sect,  which  arose  in  the  second  century,  from  the 
ashes  of  the  church  of  Jerusalem  ;*  their  opinions  upon 
any  article  are  totally  insignificant,  and  can  in  no  way 
affect  the  Catholick  tradition.  Still,  therefore,  the  mo- 


*  See  Letters  in  reply,  vi.  and  vii. 


4$  A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLERGY. 

clern  Unitarian  would  serve  his  own  cause  but  ill,  who 
should  be  able  to  succeed  in  the  attempt  to  prove,  that 
the  mere  humanity  of  Christ  was  a  tenet  of  the  Naza- 
renes. 

14.  The  neutrality  of  Epiphanius's  evidence,  is  how- 
ever, not  the  whole  of  the  proof,  by  which  our  modern 
historian  hath  taken  the  pains  to  support  an  assertion  so 
little  to  his  purpose.     It  is  alleged,  only  to  corroborate 
a  more  direct  proof,  which  is  very  proper  to  be  produ- 
ced, as  another  specimen  of  the  sort  of  argument  upon 
which  our  author's  first  proposition  rests. 

15.  The  Nazarenes  and  the  Ebionites,  he  tells  us, 
were  the  same  people,  and  held  the  same  tenets.*  By  the 
appellation  of  Ebionites,  it  is  confessed,  a  certain  sect, 
which  denied  the  divinity  of  our  Saviour,  was  originally 
distinguished .   But  how  is  it  proved,  that  these  Ebionites 
were  the  same  with  the  Nazarenes  ?     By  a  pretended 
acknowledgement  of  Origen  and  Epiphanius.f     It  is  of 
great  importance,  for  a  just  apprehension  of  the  exact 
force  of  any  writers  arguments,  to  catch  the  idioms  of 
his  style ;  and  an  attention  to  this  circumstance,  must 
be  particularly  recommended  to  Dr  Priestley's  readers. 
One  of  the  most  striking  peculiarities  of  his  language, 
is  a  very  singular  use  of  the  words  acknowledge  and  ac- 
knowledgment.     Acknowledgment,  in   the    usual    ac- 
ceptation of  the  word  in  controversial  writing,  signifies 
a  writer's  avowel  of  a  principle  or  a  fact,  which,  as 
making  for  his  adversary's  argument,  it  might  have 


*  Hist,  of  Corrup.  vol.  i.  p.  7. 

•j-  «• both  Origen  and  Epiphanius  acknowledge,  that  the  Nazarenes  and 

Ebionites  were  the  suiue  people,  and  held  the  same  tenets."  Hist,  of  Corruy. 
vol.  5.  p.  7. 


A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLERGY.  4,3 

been  for  his  purpose  to  conceal  or  to  deny,  but  that  the 
evidence  of  the  thing  extorted  the  confession.  But  with 
Dr  Priestley,  any  expressions,  which  are  capable  of 
being  drawn  by  construction  and  refinement,  to  a  sense 
that  may  seem  but  indirectly  favourable  to  his  own 
notions,  are  an  explicit  acknowledgment  of  the  writer 
who  uses  them,  that  things  actually  were,  as  Dr  Priest, 
ley  is  inclined  to  represent  them.  If  such  expressions 
of  one  writer  are  quoted  by  another ;  they  amount  to  an 
acknowledgment  to  the  same  purpose,  on  the  part  of 
the  writer  who  makes  the  quotation.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  acknowledgment  of  an  original  writer,  may 
sometimes  be  inferred  from  a  negligent  citation.  Hath 
Eusebius,  complaining  of  a  total  disregard  to  truth 
among  the  sectaries  \\lio  denied  our  Lord's  divinity, 
appealed,  in  confirmation  of  the  charge,  to  a  writer  of 
the  second  century ;  who  alleges  it  against  the  Unita- 
rians  of  his  own  time,  as  an  instance  of  the  most  harden, 
ed  effrontery,  that  they  had  the  audacity  to  assert,  that 
their  tenets  had  been  originally  taught  by  the  apostles, 
and  were  maintained  by  all  the  Roman  bishops  in  suc- 
cession, to  the  time  of  Victor?*  This  heavy  accusa- 
tion, thus  supported  by  the  testimony  of  an  earlier  writer, 
is  a  plain  acknowledgment^  on  the  part  of  Eusebius, 
that  the  Unitarians  constantly  claimed  this  high  antiqui- 
ty of  their  doctrine.  And  what  may  seem  more  para- 
doxical,  this  writer's  appeal  to  "certain  psalms  and 


*  Euseb.  Hist  Eecl.  lib.  v.  c.  28. 

|  "  It  is  acknowledged  by  Eusebius,  and  others,  "  that  the  ancient  Unitarians 
themselves  constantly  asserted,  that  their  doctrine  was  the  universal  opinion  of  the 
Christian  church,  till  the  time  of  Victor."  Hist,  of  Corrup.  vol.  ii.  p.  486.  Compare 
>ol.  i.  p.  18,  19. 


46  A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLERGY. 

odes,  the  composition  of  faithful  brethren  in  the  first  age, 
which  celebrate  the  divinity  of  the  Christ,  the  Word  of 
God,"*  is  only  a  proof  of  Eusebius's  inability  to  con- 
fute the  claim,  which,  by  his  own  acknowledgment, 
was  set  up.f  Hath  the  learned  Dr  Samuel  Clarke,  in 
an  inaccurate  citation  of  a  passage  in  Origen,  made 
Origen  speak  of  the  Unitarians  of  his  time  as  pious  per- 
sons? This  is  a  candid  acknowledgment,}  on  the  part 
of  Origen,  of  the  piety  of  those  sectaries ;  whereas 
Origen  says  not  that  they  were  pious,  but  that  they  boas- 
ted ||  tbat  they  were  pious,  or  affected  piety.  Piety, 
and  the  affectation  of  piety,  belong  to  opposite  charac- 
ters. According  to  this  enlarged  use  of  the  word  ac- 
knowledgment, it  will  indeed  be  very  hazardous  to 
deny  but  that  an  acknowledgment  to  any  purpose  may 
be  found  in  any  writer,  or  be  drawn  from  any  words.  It 
is  necessary  therefore  to  declare,  that  it  is  only  in  the 
usual  meaning  of  the  word,  that  I  take  upon  me  to  aver, 
that  no  acknowledgment  of  the  supposed  identity  of  the 
Nazarenes  and  the  Ebionites,  is  to  be  found  either  in 
Origen  or  Epipbanius.§>  Origen  says,  indeed,  of  the 
Jewish  Christians  of  hi&  own  time,  that  they  were  Ebi- 
onites :•[[  not  meaning  to  make  any  acknowledgment  in 
favour  of  the  proper  Ebionites,  as  no  worse  hereticks 


6'<r»  icau*  ee'Ssu,  a'cfexpav  aV  *£%»:  v<vo  irtton  ymwau,  TOV  Xo>sv  Tie. 
S-*  rov  Xysov  v'/mvxfi  Sw^o}*  >?*.  Euseb.  Hist.  Eccl.  lib.  v.  c.  28.  Compare  Ephes. 
V.  19.  Col.  iii.  16.  James  v.  13. 

j-  "  ....  in  refuting  their  pretensions  to  antiquity,  he  goes  no  further  back  than 
Irenaus  and  Justin  Martyr  "  Hist,  of  Corrup.  vol.  i.  p.  19. 

$  "  Origen  candidly  calls  these  adherents  to  the  strict  unity  of  God,  pious  per*-. 
sons."  Hist,  of  Corrup.  vol.  i.  p.  57. 


§  See  Appendix. 
1  Contra  Cels.  lib.  2. 


A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLERGY.  ^y 

than  the  Nazarenes  ;  but  rather  to  stigmatize  the  Naza- 
renes with  an  opprobious  appellation.  And  the  only 
c-.v>  Vision  which  is  to  be  drawn  from  this  passage  of 
O.-is;en,  is,  that  the  word  Ebionite  had,  in  his  time,  out- 
gro^a  its  original  meaning;  which  it  easily  might  do; 
inasmuch  as,  by  its  derivation,  it  is  not  naturally  des- 
criptive of  any  particular  set  of  opinions ;  but  barely  ex- 
pressive  of  the  contempt,  in  which  those  who  bestowed 
it,  held  the  knowledge  and  understanding  of  the  party 
on  which  it  was  bestowed.  It  was  therefore  likely  to 
be  variously  applied  at  different  times,  according  as  one 
or  another  folly  incurred  the  contempt  either  of  any  par- 
ticular writer,  or  of  the  age  in  which  he  flourished.  Ac- 
cordingly, it  appears  from  ecclesiastical  history,  that  the 
use  of  it  was  various  and  indefinite.  Sometimes  it  was 
the  peculiar  name  of  those  sects,  which  denied  both  the 
divinity  of  our  Lord,  and  his  miraculous  conception — 
Then  its  meaning  was  extended  to  take  in  another 
party  ;  which,  admitting  the  miraculous  conception  of 
Jesus,  still  denied  his  divinity,  and  questioned  his  pre- 
vious existence — And  at  last,  it  seems  the  Nazarenes, 
whose  error  was  rather  a  superstitious  severity  in  their 
practice  than  any  deficiency  in  their  faith,  were  inclu, 
ded  by  Origen  in  the  infamy  of  the  appellation.  It  was 
natural  indeed  for  Origen,  fond  as  he  was  of  mystick 
interpretations  of  the  Jewish  Scriptures,  and  possessed 
with  the  imagination,  that  every  particular  of  the  ritual 
service,  and  every  occurrence  in  the  Jewish  story,  was 
typical  of  something  in  the  gospel  dispensation  ;  it  was 
natural  for  Origen,  to  think  meanly  of  a  sect  who  held 
the  observance  of  the  letter  of  the  ceremonial  law,  to  be 
an  essential  part  of  a  Christian's  duty.  They  certainly 
had  little  apprehension  of  the  free  spirit  of  the  religion 


4$  A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLERGY. 

they  professed ;  and  this,  with  Origen,  would  be  the 
surest  mark  of  a  low  and  beggarly  understanding.  It 
is  in  this  reproachful  appellation,  which  he  alone  of  all 
the  writers  of  antiquity  hath  bestowed  upon  the  Naza- 
renes, that  Dr  Priestley  hath  discovered  his  acknowl- 
edgment in  favour  of  the  Ebionites.  For  Epiphanius, 
who  is  joined  with  Origen  in  this  acknowledgment,  he 
describes  the  Nazarenes  and  the  Ebionites  as  differ- 
ent sects,  maintaining  different  opinions  ;  except  that 
they  agreed  in  retaining  more  or  less  of  the  Mosaick 
service.  * 

10.  Among  other  specimens  of  our  author's  happy 
art  of  turning  every  thing,  by  a  dexterous  interpreta- 
tion, to  his  own  purpose ;  it  were  injustice  to  the  inju- 
red memory  of  Eusebius,  not  to  mention  the  attempt 
that  is  made  to  shake  the  credit  of  his  history,  by  re- 
presenting the  unfairness  with  which  that  candid  writer 
is  supposed  to  treat  the  Unitarians ;  where  he  says,  "that 
Theodotus,  who  appeared  about  the  year  190,  was  the 
first  who  held  that  our  Saviour  was  a  mere  man ;  when 
in  refuting  their  pretensions  to  antiquity,  he  goes  no 
farther  back  than  to  Irenseus  and  Justin  Martyr,  though 
in  his  own  writings  alone  he  might  have  found  a  refuta- 
tion of  his  assertion.''*  It  must  be  confessed,  that  any 
one  who  should  assert  that  Theodotus  was  the  first  who 
taught  a  doctrine,  which  sunk  our  Lord  into  the  rank 
of  mere  man,  might  easily  be  confuted  from  the  eccle. 


*  See  this  two-fold  question,  concerning  the  faith  of  the  Nazarenes,  and  the 
distinction  between  the  Nazarenes  and  Ehionites,  largely  discussed  in  the  second 
of  Dr  Priestley's  Letters  to  me,  the  sixth  and  seventh  of  my  Letters  in  reply, 
the  third  of  Dr  Priestley's  second  Letters,  and  my  remarks  on  his  second  Let- 
ters,— Part  II.  chap.  ii.  and  iii. 

f  Hist  of  Comip.  vol.  i.  p.  19. 


A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLERGY.  ^n 

iaatical  history  of  Eusebius ;  in  which  the  Ceriuthians 
and  the  Ebionites,  who  are  taxed  by  all  antiquity  with 
that  impiety,  are  referred  to  an  earlier  period.  The 
truth  however  seems  to  be,  that  the  doctrine  of  our  Lord's 
humanity,  like  all  corruptions,  had  its  stages  ;  that  it 
was  carried  by  degrees  to  the  height  which  it  at  last 
attained ;  and  that  Theodotus,  in  this  article,  so  far 
surpassed  the  earlier  heresiarchs,  that  the  merit  of  being 
the  inventor  of  the  mere  humanity,  in  the  precise  and 
full  meaning  of  the  words,  is  with  great  propriety  and 
truth  ascribed  to  him.  When  the  Cerinthians  and  the 
Ebionites  affirmed,  that  Jesus  had  no  existence  previous 
to  Mary's  conception,  and  that  he  was  literally  and 
physically  the  carpenter's  son;  it  might  justly  be  said  of 
them,  that  they  asserted  the  mere  humanity  of  the  Re- 
deemer :  especially,  as  it  could  not  be  foreseen,  that  the 
impiety  would  ever  go  a  greater  length  than  this,  of 
ascribing  to  him  an  origin  merely  human.  These  here- 
ticks,  however,  went  no  farther,  as  I  conceive,  than  to 
deny  our  Lord's  original  divinity  :  they  admitted  I  know 
not  what  unintelligible  exaltation  of  his  nature,*  which 
took  place,  as  they  conceived,  upon  his  ascension,  by 
which  he  became  no  less  the  object  of  worship,  than  if 
his  nature  had  been  originally  divine.  But  when  a 
more  daring  (though,  I  confess,  a  far  more  consistent) 
sect  arose  ;  denj  ing  that  our  Lord  in  glory,  is  more  than 
a  mortal  man,  raised,  as  all  the  just  will  one  day  be, 
to  immortality  ;  or  that  he  is  more  the  object  of  adoration 
than  Enoch  or  Elijah ;  these  younger  hereticks,  eclipsed 
the  glory  of  their  timid  ancestors,  and  might  justly  claim 


•  See  the  fourteenth  of  my  Letters  ia  reply,  sec,  5. 

7 


0Q  A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLEKGY. 

the  honour,  of  being  the  first  assertors  of  the  mere  hu- 
manity of  Christ ;  for  they  were  indeed  the  first,  who" 
made  humanity  the  whole  of  his  condition.  It  was  un- 
doubtedly in  this  exalted  sense,  that  the  humanity  of 
Christ  was  taught  by  Theodotus ;  for  nothing  short  of 
this  might  serve  his  purpose  ;  which,  as  we  learn  from 
Epiphanius,  was  to  extenuate  the  guilt  of  a  renunciation 
of  his  faith,  which  he  had  made  under  the  terrors  of 
persecution,  by  setting  up  a  plea,  that,  in  renouncing 
Christ,  he  had  not  renounced  his  God,  but  a  man.  This 
plea  could  be  of  no  service  to  Theodotus's  cause,  unless 
Christ  were  a  man,  not  only  in  his  origin,  but  at  the 
time  when  Theodotus  renounced  him.  It  was  therefore 
that  sublime  doctrine,  which  is  at  this  day  taught  in  the 
conventicles*  of  Dr  Priestley  and  Mr  Lindsey  ;  the  doc- 
trine  of  our  Lord's  mere  undeified  humanity ;  which 
Theodotus,  the  learned  tanner  of  Byzantium,  a  deser- 
ter of  his  Lord,  and  a  fugitive  from  his  country,  broach- 
ed at  Rome,  in  the  end  of  the  second  century.  This 
doctrine,  Dr  Priestley  will  perhaps  find  it  difficult  to 
trace  to  any  earlier  period,  or  to  any  more  respectable 
origin.  No  injury,  therefore,  is  done  to  the  Unitarian 
cause,  when  Theodotus  is  said  to  be  the  first  author  of 
the  Unitarian  doctrine,  in  this  exalted,  finished,  form. 
But  after  all,  this  is  not,  what  Dr  Priestley  imagines  it 
to  be,  the  assertion  of  Eusebius.  It  is  the  assertion  of  a 


*  That  the  assemblies  held  by  Mr  Landsey,  in  Essex-Street,  and  by  Dr 
Priestley,  at  Birmingham,  are  strictly  COJTFEXTICLES,  in  the  genuine  forensick 
meaning  of  the  word,  see  proved  in  the  seventeenth  of  my  Letters  in  reply, 
sec-  8;  and  ray  Remarks  on  Dr  Priestley's  second  Letters,— Part  II.  chap.  iv. 
sec.  6.  And  that  Dr  Priestley  is,  by  his  principles,  disqualified  to  be  the  pastor 
of  any  thing  better  than  a  Conventicle,  see  prov«d  by  his  own  confeswon,  in  the 
seventeenth  of  his  second  Letters  to  we, 


A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLEttGY.  54 

writer  cited  by  Eusebius  without  any  name.  It  should 
seem  that  be  was  of  the  Latin  church,  and  that  his  ex. 
pressions  are  to  be  understood  with  particular  reference 
to  the  state  of  religion  in  the  western  world,  especially 
at  Rome.  Now  it  was  probably  true,  that  Theodotus 
was  the  very  first,  who,  at  Rome,  in  any  sense,  taught 
the  mere  humanity  of  Christ.  For  notwithstanding  the 
corrupt  state  of  the  Roman  church  in  later  ages,  it  is 
notorious,  that  she  was  the  last  of  all,  infected  with  any 
gross  heresy.  As  for  the  pretensions  of  the  Unitarians, 
which  it  might  be  incumbent  upon  Eusebius  to  refute, 
they  were  not  simply  pretensions  to  antiquity.  The 
antiquky  of  the  Unitarian  doctrine,  in  a  certain  form,  is 
confessed.  Its  antiquity  is  proved,  by  the  express  cen. 
sure  which  is  passed  upon  it  in  St  John's  writings,  both 
in  his  first  epistle  and  in  his  gospel,  as  a  dangerous 
error  which  was  in  being  when  he  wrote*  But  the  pre- 
tensions of  the  Unitarians,  which  Eusebius  contradicts, 
were  pretensions  to  a  prior  antiquity :  the  pretence  that 
their  own  doctrine  was  original,  and  the  doctrine  of  the 
church,  in  the  time  of  Zephyrmus,  novel.  And  in  refu- 
ting these  pretensions,  the  writer  quoted  by  Eusebius, 
goes  back  to  the  apostolick  age  :  he  goes  back  to  those 
psalms  and  odes,  which  seem  to  be  alluded  to  in  the 
apostolick  epistles,  and  to  the  books  of  holy  writ.* 

II. 

I.  By  these  specimens,  a  judgment  may  be  formed,  of 
the  arguments  and  of  the  facts  by  which  our  author's 
first  assumption  is  supported.  By  exposing  the  weak- 


•  See  this  question  about  Theodotus,  pursued  in  the  eighth  of  Dr  Priestley's 
first  Letters  to  me,  the  posstcript,  sec.  4 ;  aud  the  fourteenth  of  ixiy  Letters  ia 
reply. 


58  A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLERGY. 

ness  of  our  anther's  arguments,  and  by  the  proof  which 
luith  been  produced  from  the  writings  of  Ignatius,  that 
the  divinity  of  the  Bon,  his  full  divinity,  was  acknowl- 
edged by  the  immediate  disciples  of  the  apostles ;  (a 
proof,  which,  had  not  the  work  been  long  since  done  by 
the  learned  Bishop  Bull,  might  have  been  strengthened 
with  a  copious  collection  of  passages  to  the  same  pur- 
pose from  Ignatius.  Barnabas,  Clemens  Romanus,  Her- 
nias, and  the  authentick  acts  of  the  martyrdom  of  Poly- 
carp,)  by  the  detection  of  the  fallacy  of  the  arguments 
on  the  one  side,  and  by  the  positive  proof  adduced  on 
the  other ;  our  author's  notion  of  the  faith  of  the  first 
Christians,  that  it  was  purely  Unitarian,  is  overturned. 
And  if  this  notion  of  the  first  Christians  be  overturned ; 
the  assertion,  that  the  doctrine  of  our  Lord's  divinity 
was  an  invention  of  the  second  race,  falls  with  it.     For 
what  was  believed  by  the  first  race,  could  be  no  in- 
vention  of  the   second.     Nor  can   any  argument  be 
drawn,  from  any  resemblance  that  may  be  imagined 
between  the  Trinity  of  the  Christian  church,  and  the 
three  principles  of  the  Platonists,  that  the  doctrine  of 
the  apostles  was  not  rightly  understood  by  their  first 
converts  ;  unless  indeed  it  could  be  proved,  (which  is 
the  tacit  assumption  upon  which  this  objection  is  found- 
ed.) that  the  discoveries  of  revelation,  and  the  investiga- 
tions of  philosophy,  may  never  coincide.     But  why  is  it 
supposed,  that   nothing  can  be  a  part  of  an  inspired 
teacher's  doctrine,  which  had  been  taught  before  by 
wise  men,  who  were  not  inspired  ?  Were  every  iota  of 
the  gospel  doctrine  to  be  found  in  the.  writings  of  the 
Greek  philosophers,  this  would  not  be  sufficient  to  set 
aside  the  pretensions  of  the  first  preachers  of  Christianity 
to  a  divine  commission — the  just  conclusion  from  so  per- 


A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLERGY.  53 

feet  an  agreement  would  only  be,  that  for  the  great  im- 
portance of  these  doctrines  to  the  manners  of  mankind, 
it  had  pleased  God  to  make  discoveries  to  all  men  by 
revelation,  to  which  a  few  only  could  attain  by  abstract 
reasoning.     The  case  indeed  is  far  otherwise.     It  is 
ever  to  be  remembered,  for  the  mortification  of  man's 
pride,  and  to  the  praise  of  God's  mercy ;  that  "  when  the 
\vorld  by  wisdom  know  not  God,"  when  philosophy  had 
made  its  utmost  efforts,  not  entirely  without  success,  but 
with  little  general  advantage  ;  "  It  pleased  God  by  the 
foolishness  of  preaching,"  by  a  method  of  instruction, 
which  iii  the  article  of  religious  information,  hath  abol- 
ished the  distinction  between  the  philosopher  and  the 
idiot,  "  to  save  them   that  believe."     But  had  our  sup- 
posed  case  actually  obtained,  had  revelation  discovered 
nothing  more  to  all,  than  reason  had  previously  taught  a 
few,  still  to  teach  all  and  to  teach  a  few,  is  so  different  a 
business,  that  the  previous  attainments  of  philosophers, 
would  have  afforded  no  objection  against  the  pretensions 
of  the  first  preachers  of  the  gospel,  sufficient  to  overturn 
the  evidence  by  which  their  claim  to  a  divine  commis- 
sion is  supported.     Much  less  may  a  resemblance,  more 
or  less  exact,  between  faith  and  philosophy  in  single 
articles,  create  a  presumption,  that  those  articles  of  faith, 
of  which  certain  philosophical  opinions  seem  to  carry  a 
resemblance,  made  no  part  of  the  doctrine  which  those 
inspired  teachers  taught.     The  resemblance  may  seem 
indeed  a  wonderful  fact,  which  may  justly  draw  the 
attention  of  the  serious  and  inquisitive.   And  if  it  should 
be  deemed  incredible,  as  well  it  may,  that  reason,  in  her 
utmost  strength,  should  ever  ascend  so  high,  as  to  attain 
even  to  a  distant  glimpse  of  truths,  which  have  ever 
teen  esteemed  the  most  mysterious  discoveries  of  reve- 


g£  A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLLRGV. 

lation ;  it  will  become  a  question  of  the  highest  curiosity 
and  importance  to  determine,  by  what  means  the  Pla- 
tonick  school  came  by  those  notions  of  the  Godhead, 
which,  had  they  been  of  later  date  than  the  commence- 
ment of  Christianity,  might  have  passed  for  a  very  mild 
corruption  of  the  Christian  faith ;  but  being  in  truth 
much  older,  have  all  the  appearance  of  a  near,  though 
very  imperfect  view,  of  the  doctrine  which  was  after- 
wards  current  in  the  Christian  church. 

2.  The  inquiry  becomes  more  important,  when  it  is 
discovered,  that  these  notions  were  by  no  means  peculiar 
to  the  Platonick  school ;  that  the  Platonists  pretended  to 
be  no  more  than  the  expositors  of  a  more  ancient  doc- 
trine, which  is  traced  from  Plato  to  Parmenides  ; 
from  Parmenides  to  his  masters  of  the  Pythagorean 
sect ;  from  the  Pythagoreans  to  Orpheus,  the  earliest  of 
the  Grecian  Mystagogues  ;  from  Orpheus  to  the  secret 
lore  of  the  Egyptian  priests,  in  which  the  foundations 
of  the  Orphick  theology  were  laid.  Similar  notions  of 
a  triple  principle  prevailed  in  the  Persian  and  ChaldsBan 
theology  ;  and  vestiges,  even  of  the  worship  of  a  Trinity, 
were  discernable  in  the  Roman  superstition  in  a  very 
late  age.  This  worship,  the  Romans  had  received  from 
their  Trojan  ancestors;  for  the  Trojans  brought  it 
with  them  into  Italy  from  Phrygia.  In  Phrygia  it  was 
introduced  by  Dardanus,  so  early  as  in  the  ninth  century 
after  Noah's  flood — Dardanus  carried  it  with  him  from 
Samothrace,  where  the  personages  that  were  the  ob- 
jects of  it,  were  worshiped  under  the  Hebrew  name  of 
the  Cabirim.  Who  these  Cabirim  might  be,  has  been 
matter  of  unsuccessful  inquiry  to  many  learned  men. 
The  utmost  that  is  known  with  certainty  is,  that  they 
were  originally  three,  and  were  called  by  way  of  emi- 


A  CHARGE  TO  THB  CLERGY,  0g 

nence,  the  Great  or  Mighty  Ones  :  for  that  is  the  import 
of  the  Hebrew  name.  And  of  the  like  import  is  their 
Latin  appellation,  Penates.  Dii  per  quos  penitus  spi- 
ramus,  per  quos  habemus  corpus,  per  quos  rationem 
anitni  possidemus.*  Dii  qui  sunt  intrinsecus,  atque  in 
intimis  penetralibus  cceltf.  Thus  the  joint  worship  of 
Jupiter,  Juno,  and  Minerva,  the  Triad  of  the  Roman 
Capitol,  is  traced  to  that  of  the  THREE  MIGHTY  ONES  in 
Samothrace  f ;  which  was  established  in  that  island,  at 
what  precise  time  it  is  impossible  to  determine ;  but 
earlier,  if  Eusebius  may  be  credited,  than  the  days  of 
Abraham. 

3.  The  notion  therefore  of  a  Trinity,  more  or  less 
removed  from  the  purity  of  the  Christian  faith,  is  found 
to  have  been  a  leading  principle  in  all  the  ancient 
schools  of  philosophy,  and  in  the  religions  of  almost 
all  nations  ;  and  traces  of  an  early  popular  belief  of  it, 
appear  even  in  the  abominable  rites  of  idolatrous  wor- 
ship. If  reason  was  insufficient  for  this  great  discovery, 
what  conld  be  the  means  of  information,  but  what  the 
Platonists  themselves  assign  ©eca-afaWoc  0«Aoy*x.  «  A 
theology  delivered  from  the  gods,"  i.  e.  a  revelation. 
This  is  the  account  which  Platonists,  who  were  no 
Christians,  have  given  of  the  origin  of  their  master's 
doctrine.  But  from  what  revelation  could  they  derive 
their  information,  who  lived  before  the  Christian,  and 
had  no  light  from  the  Mosaick  ?  For  whatever  some, 
of  the  early  fathers  may  have  imagined,  there  is  no  evi- 


*  Macrob.  Saturnal.  lib.  iii.  c.  4. 

f  Varro  apud  Arnob.  lib.  iii.  p.  123.    Lugd.  Bat.  1651. 

}  '  Tarquinius  Demarati  Corinthii  filius, — Samothraeiit  mystici  toabuttu, 
ono  templo  ao  sub  eodem  tecto,  uuxoiua  memorata  eonjungit.  Mucrob.  Saturna!. 
lib.  Hi,  o.  4. 


0|5  A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLEUGY. 

dence  that  Plato  or  Pythagoras  were  at  all  acquainted 
\vith  the  Mosaick  writings  :  not  to  insist,  that  the  wor- 
ship of  a  Trinity  is  traced  to  an  earlier  age  than  that 
of  Plato  or  of  Pythagoras,  or  even  of  Moses.  Their 
information  could  be  only  drawn  from  traditions  foun- 
ded upon  earlier  revelations  ;  from  scattered  fragments 
of  the  ancient  patriarchal  creed  ;  that  creed,  which  was 
universal  before  the  defection  of  the  first  idolaters,  which 
the  corruptions  of  idolatry,  gross  and  enormous  as  they 
were,  could  never  totally  obliterate.*  Thus,  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Trinity,  is  rather  confirmed  than  discredited 
by  the  suffrage  of  the  heathen  sages  ;  since  the  resem- 
blance of  the  Christian  faith  and  the  Pagan  philosophy 
in  this  article,  when  fairly  interpreted,  appears  to  be 
nothing  less  than  the  consent  of  the  latest  and  the  earli- 
est revelations. 

III. 

1.  Our  author's  assumption,  that  the  doctrine  of  our 
Lord's  Divinity,  was  an  innovation  of  the  Platonick 
Christians  of  the  second  century,  being  overthrown  by 
direct  proof,  that  this  pretended  innovation  was  a  part 
of  the  faith  of  the  first  Christians ;  all  oblique  and  secon- 
dary arguments,  that  might  otherwise  create  a  presump- 
tion in  our  author's  favour,  are  rendered  wholly  insig- 
nificant To  Dr  Priestley,  it  seems  a  circumstance  of 
great  importance,  that  these  early  writers  "  sometimes 
drop  the  personification  of  the  Logos,  (which  in  his 
opinion  had  been  their  first  step  towards  the  deification 


*  «  What  Socrates  said  of  him,  what  Plato  writ,  and  the  rest  of  the 

heathen  philosophers  of  several  nations,  is  all  no  more  than  the  twilight  of  re- 
velation, after  the  sun  of  it  was  set  in  the  race  of  Noah."  Dry  den's  Preface 
to  llehgio  Laid. 


A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLERGY.  $y 

of  our  Saviour,*)  and  speak  of  it  as  the  mere  attribute 
of  God."f  This  he  imputes  to  the  difficulty,  with 
which  new  opinions  lay  hold  upon  the  mind ;  and  to 
the  natural  prevalency  of  good  sense,  which  is  such, 
that  it  will  in  all  cases  often  get  the  better  of  imagina- 
tion.J  Facts  themselves  should  be  established,  before 
consequences  are  deduced  from  them.  Let  us  there, 
fore  consider  the  example  by  which  this  assertion  is 
supported. 

2.  Theophilus  of  Antioch  says,  "  that  when  God 
said,  Let  us  make  man,  he  spake  to  nothing  but  his 
own  Logos,  or  wisdom. "§  It  must  be  confessed,  that 
the  example  is  happily  chosen.  It  is  clear,  that  in  this 
passage  of  Theophilus,  as  it  is  expressed  in  Dr  Priest- 
ley's  translation,  the  Logos  is  described  as  nothing  but 
the  Wisdom  of  God  :  nothing  but  His  own  wisdom. 
His  own  Wisdom  must  be  that  eternal  Wisdom,  which 
is  a  power  of  his  own  Mind,  a  property  of  his  own. 
Person :  and,  to  say  that  God  spake  to  "  nothing  but 
his  own  Wisdom,"  is  to  say,  that  he  spake  to  no  one 
but  himself.  Dr  Priestley,  methinks,  hath  spared  to 
make  the  use  he  might  have  done  of  this  passage  of 
Theophilus  ;  which  seems  not  only  to  be,  an  instance  iu 
which  Theophilus  drops  the  personification  of  the  Logos 
in  his  own  writings  ;  but  to  prove,  that  as  far  as  the 
interpretation  of  the  Old  Testament  is  of  any  impor- 
tance, the  authority  of  this  learned  and  ancient  bishop 
of  Antioch  stands  with  the  Unitarian  scheme.  This 


•  Hist  of  Corrup.  part  i.  sec.  ii. 
f  Ibid.  vol.  i.  p.  3S. 

*  Ibid. 
i  Ibid. 

8 


53  A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLERGY. 

learned  bishop  tells  us,  that  the  writers  of  the  old  Tes- 
tament, if  ever  they  seem  to  allude  to  a  plurality  of  per- 
sons in  the  Godhead,  speak  figuratively,  and  are  to  be 
understood  accordingly.  The  allusion  is  perhaps  no 
where  stronger,  than  in  those  words  of  Moses,  in  the 
book  of  Genesis,  "  God  said,  Let  us  make."  God  not 
only  speaks,  "  God  said;"  but  God  speaks  in  the  plu- 
ral number,  "  Let  us  make ;"  as  though  persons  were 
addressed,  who  were  to  take  part  with  the  speaker  in 
the  business  to  be  done.  Theophilus,  the  celebrated 
bishop  of  Antioch ;  Theophilus,  so  respectable  for  his 
antiquity,  his  piety,  and  his  learning ;  Theophilus  cau- 
tions us,  not  to  be  over-confident  of  the  consequences 
which  we  draw  from  this  rigid  exposition  of  the  sacred 
Writer's  words.  Theophilus  affirms,  that  the  expression 
is  purely  figurative ;  signifying  only,  that  before  man 
was  made,  the  purpose  of  making  him  arose?  and  was 
contemplated,  in  the  divine  intellect.  The  expression 
describes  an  internal  deliberation  of  the  Divine  Mind 
concerning  the  intended  work ;  just  as  the  private 
thoughts  and  purposes  of  a  man,  are  sometimes  expres- 
sed under  the  figure  of  a  discourse  passing  within  him- 
self. All  this,  Theophilus  affirms  in  Dr  Priestley's 
English.  Nothing  of  this  Theophilus  affirms,  speaking 
for  himself,  in  his  own  language,*  **  a\*&>  It  nvi  tym, 

TLoiviau[jit.V)  dx\    v\   ru  £ai//»    Aoyw,  /.a*    rvi  fcat//«    2o<p/a.      The 

"  nothing  but"  of  Dr  Priestley's  English,  conveys  quite 
another  idea  than  the  *'*  a\Ao>  Tin  a\\*  »J  of  Theophilus's 
Greek.  The  Logos  and  the  Wisdom,  as  different 
names  of  one  thing,  are  connected  by  the  disjunctive  or. 


*  Ad.  Autolyc.  p.  114.    Oxon.  1684. 


A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLERGY.  $g 

in  Dr  Priestley's  English ;  as  names  of  different  things, 
they  are  connected  by  the  copulative  and,  (K«/,)  in  The- 
ophilus's  Greek.     The  exact  rendering  of  Theophilus's 
words  is  to  this  effect:  "It  was  to  no  other  person" 
(that  is  the  proper  force  of  J*  a\x6>  T/K/,  hand  alii  cuipiam) 
"It  was  to  no  other  person  that  he  said,  Let  us  make, 
than  to  his  own  Word,  and  to  his  own  Wisdom."     TV 
\aofl\t  Aoyw  xaJ  r*  sou/I*  50p*a.     The  repetition  of  the  demon- 
strative article  with  the  pronoun,  as  well  as  the  connec- 
tion  hy  the  copulative,  clearly  shows   that  Aoyoc  and 
209/a,  the  Word  and  the  Wisdom,  are  different  things. 
Hath  Dr  Priestley  written  a  history  of  the  Corruptions 
of  Christianity,  and  hath  he  yet  to   learn,  that  in  the 
language  of  Theophilus,  and  of  the  best  writers  of  his 
age,  the  Word  and  the  Wisdom,  (Aoyoc  and  2op<*,)  are 
used  as  proper  names  of  the  second  and  third  persons 
of  the  Trinity  ?  If  his  own  reading  in  those  early  fathers 
hath  been  so  confined,  that  not  one  of  the  clear  unequi- 
vocal instances  that  occur  in  Theophilus   himself,  in 
Origen,  in  Tatian,  and  Irenseus,  hath  ever  fallen  under 
his  own  proper  observation,  lie  might  have  been  inform- 
ed of  this  peculiarity  of  their  style,  from  the  notes  which 
accompany  the  text  of  Theophilus,  in  Bishop  Fell's 
edition,  printed  at  Oxford  in  1684;  which,  as  it  is  inser- 
ted in  his  catalogue*  of  principal  editions,  it  is  possible 
he  may  have  seen.     Theophilus's  assertion,  that  God 
spake  to  no    other   person   than    his  Word   and   his 
wisdom,  is  an  assertion,  that  he  spake  to  persons  of  no 
less  dignity,  than  the  Son  and  the  Holy  Ghost     It  is 


*  Dr  Priestley's  Preface,  p.  xxii. 


gQ  A  CHAKGE  TO  THE  CLERGY. 

an  assertion  of  the  Catholick  exposition*  of  the  text, 
and  of  the  consequences  deduced  from  it,  in  opposition 
to  the  Jewish  expositors  of  that  age ;  who  contended, 
that  this  speech  of  God  was  addressed  to  the  angels. 
Theophilus  therefore,  in  this  passage,  hath  not  dropped 
the  personification  of  the  Logos;  that  is,  he  hath  not  re. 
ceded  from  the  assertion  of  the  personality  of  the  Word, 
lie  affirms  not,  that  the  Logos,  so  often  mentioned  by 
himself  and  other  writers  as  a  person,  is  no  person,  hut 
merely  the  Divine  Attribute  of  Wisdom ;  which,  in  the 
usual  language  of  grammarians,  were  rather  to  assert 
the  personificationf  than  to  drop  it :  but  by  the  names 
of  the  Word  and  the  Wisdom,  he  distinguishes  two 
different  persons;  saying,  these  were  the  persons  to 
whom  God  spake. 

IV. 

I.  We  have  seen  by  what  sort  of  arguments,  our 
authors  two  first  assertions,  «  That  the  faith  of  the 
first  age  was  Unitarian,  and  that  the  doctrine  of  our 
Lord's  divinity  was  an  invention  of  the  second,"  are 
supported.  If  he  hath  succeeded  no  better  in  the  proof 
of  his  third  assertion,  concerning  the  Platonick  Chris- 
tians of  the  second  age,  the  inventors,  as  he  would  have 
it,  of  our  Lord's  divinity, — that  the  divinity  which  they 
set  up  was  only  of  that  secondary  sort,  which  was  ad- 
mitted  by  the  Arians,  including  neither  eternity,  nor 


*  That  this  is  the  true  exposition,  that  the  text  describes  a  consultation  which 
passed  between  the  persons  of  the  Godhead,  is  shown  with  great  brevity,  but 
with  the  highest  degree  of  evidence  and  perspicuity,  in  Dr  Kennicott's  disser- 
tation on  the  Tree  of  Life,  p.  29,  30. — Compare  the  same  dissertation,  p,  71 . 

•j-  Of  my  misapprehension  of  the  word  personification,  as  used  by  Dr  Priestley, 
and  how  little  it  affects  my  argument,  sec  the  thirteenth  of  my  Letters  in 
in  reply,  sec.  2—5. 


A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLERGY.  Q± 

any  proper  necessity  of  existence,  having  the  mere  name 
of  diviuity,  without  any  thing  of  the  real  form  ;  if  the 
proof  of  this  third  assertion  should  be  found  to  be 
equally  infirm  with  that  of  the  other  two,  bis  notion  of 
the  gradual  progress  of  opinions,  fiom  the  mere  Unita- 
rian doctrine  to  the  Arian,  and  from  the  Arian  doctrine 
to  the  xVthanasiari  faith,  must  be  deemed  a  mere  dream, 
or  fiction,  in  every  part. 

2.  It  must  be  acknowledged,  that  the  first  converts 
from  the  Platonick  school,  took  advantage  of  the  resem- 
blance between  the  evangclick  and  Platonick  doctrine, 
on  the  subject  of  the  Godhead,  to  apply  the  principles 
of  their  old  philosophy,  to  the  explication  and  the  confir- 
mation of  the  articles  of  their  faith.     They  defended  it 
by  arguments  drawn  from  Platonick  principles ;  they 
even  propounded  it  in  Platonick  language  :  which,  to 
themselves  and  their  contemporaries,  was  the  most  fa- 
miliar and  intelligible  that  could  be  employed,  upon  so 
abstruse  a  subject.     Nor  was  this  practice  to  be  con- 
demned, so  long  as  the  Scriptures  and   the  Catholick 
traditions  were  made  the  test  of  truth ;  so  long  as  reve- 
lation was  not  pressed  into  the  service  of  philosophy,  by 
any  accommodation  of  the  pure  evangelical  doctrine  to 
preconceived   opinions  :   but  philosophy  was  made  to 
exert  her  powers  in  the  defence  of  revelation,  and  to 
lend  her  language  to  be  the  vehicle  of  its  sacred  truths. 
These  might  be  deemed  the  most  promising  means  that 
could  be  employed,  for  bringing  over  more  converts 
from  the  Pagan  schools  ;  and  the  writers,  who  evangel 
ized  in  this  philosophical  style,  conceived  perhaps,  that 
they   had  the  sanction  of  an  Apostle's  example,  "  for 
becoming  all  things  to  all  men,  that  they  might  gain 
some." 


63  A  CHARGE  TO  THE  GLEUGY, 

3.  But  whatever  might  he  the  purity  of  their  inten- 
tions, they  were  guilty  of  an  unpardonable  deviation 
from  the  primitive  faith,  if  it  he  true,  that  they  maintain- 
ed the  doctrine  which  Dr  Priestley  ascribes  to  them  ; 
namely,  that  the  Son  is  the  mere  contingent  creature  of 
the  Father's  will  and  power ;  a  production  which  hath 
not  always  existed.*     We  have  seen,  that  this  was  not 
the  belief  of  the  first  age ;  and  if  it  is  ta  be  found  in  the 
writings  of  the  second,  it  could  indeed  be  nothing  better 
than  a  corruption  of  religion  by  philosophy. 

4.  To  judge  of  the  truth  of  a  writer's  proposition, 
and  even  to  divine  of  what  sort  the  arguments  will  be, 
which  he  will  allege  in  support  of  it,  it  is  sometimes 
sufficient  that  the  precise  tenor  of  it  be  clearly  under- 
stood.    They  were  converts  from  Platonism,  they  were 
Christians,  who,  with  their  Christianity,  are  supposed 
to  have  retained  their  Platonism,  to  whom  Dr  Priestley 
ascribes  the  notion  of  a  Logos  which  had  not  always  ex- 
isted, but  began  to  be,  like  other  creatures,  by  an  act  of 
the  Father's  will.     After  all  that  Dr  Priestley  hath 
written,  about  the  resemblance  between  the  ecclesiastical 
and  the  Platonick  Trinity ;  he  hath  yet,  it  seems,  to 
learn,  that  a  created  Logos,  a  Logos  which  had  ever  not 
existed,  was  no  less  an  absurdity  in  the  academy,  than 
it  is  an  impiety  in  the  church.     The  converts  from  Pla- 
tonism must  have  renounced  their  philosophy,  before 
they  could  be  the  authors  of  this  absurd,  this  monstrous 
opinion.f     As  the  notion  that  this  doctrine  took  its  rise 
with  them,  betrays  a  total  ignorance  of  the  genuine  prin- 


*  Uist  of  Corrup.  vol.  i.  p.  42,  44,  62. 

|  See  more  upon  this  subject  in  the  eighth  of  Dr  Priestley's  first  Letters  to 
me,  and  the  tliirteenth  of  nay  Letters  in  reply,  sec.  8. 


A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLERGY.  gg 

ciples  of  their  school;  it  is  easy  to  foresee,  that  the  ar- 
guments brought  in  support  of  it?  can  only  be  founded  in 
gross  misconstructions  of  their  language.  That  this  is 
indeed  the  case,  will  be  abundantly  proved  by  a  single 
instance. 

5.  Athenagoras  is  one  of  the  writers  to  whom  Dr 
Priestley  refers  for  a  proof  of  his  assertion.  The  pas- 
sage which  he  cites,  as  affording  a  proof  that  Athena- 
goras believed  not  that  Christ  had  always  existed,  or 
that  the  Logos  had  always  existed,  otherwise  than  as 
an  attribute  of  the  Divine  Mind,  happens  to  be  one,  in 
which  that  Philosophick  father  asserts  the  eternity  of 
the  Logos,  as  a  distinct  person,  in  the  most  explicit 
terms ;  and  argues  in  support  of  it,  from  a  certain  rela- 
tion of  the  Logos  to  the  paternal  intellect,  which  the 
name,  Logos,  implies.  "  Athenagoras,"  says  Dr  Priest- 
ley, "calls  Christ  the  first  production  of  the  Father; 
but  says,  he  was  not  always  actually  produced  ;  for  that 
from  the  beginning,  God,  being  an  eternal  mind,  had 
reason  in  himself,  being  from  eternity  rational."*  But 
let  us  hear  Athenagoras  himself,  f  "  If/7  says  he,  u  en- 
dowed as  you  are  with  superior  understanding,"  (he 
addresses  the  Emperors  Marcus  Aurelius  Antoninus, 
and  Lucius  Aurelius  Commodus,)  it  should  occur  to 
you  to  inquire,  whence  it  is  that  he  is  called  a  Son,  I 
will  explain  it  in  a  few  words.  (It  is)  that  he  is  to  the 
Father  (as)  the  first  offspring.  Not  as  something  made, 
(This  is  the  true  sense  of  the  words,  in  which  Dr  Priest- 
ley imagines  that  it  is  said  that  Christ  was  not  always 
produced)  "  Not  as  something  made.  For  God,  being 


•  Hist,  of  Corrup.  vol.  i.  p.  SO. 

|  See  the  entire  Greek  passage,  p,  62. 


(54  A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLERGY. 

an  eternal  intelligence,  himself  from  the  beginning  had 
the  Logos  in  himself,  being  eternally  rational."  The 
learned  father  undertakes  to  explain  to  the  philosophi- 
cal emperors,  why  the  second  person  in  the  ever  bles- 
sed Trinity,  is  called  the  Hon.  He  tells  them,  that 
this  name  is  expressive  of  a  certain  relation,  which  the 
second  person  stands  in  to  the  first,  who  is  called  the 
Father  ;  which  relation  is  that  of  the  eldest  born.  But 
lest  the  relation  of  primogeniture  should  lead  to  the  no- 
tion of  a  proper  physical  generation,  which  would  sink 
the  Son  into  the  rank  of  a  creature,  (for  generation  is 
only  a  particular  way  in  which  certain  things  are  made,) 
he  says,  that  the  birth  or  generation  of  the  Son,  is  not 
to  be  understood  as  if  he  were  something  that  had  been 
ever  made ;  as  if  his  being  had  commenced,  at  any  cer. 
tain  time,  by  the  inducement  of  a  form  upon  a  pre-exis- 
ting material.  For  that  is  the  general  notion  of  a  ma- 
king ;  although  in  common  speech  it  is  usual  to  say  of 
those  things  only,  that  they  are  made,  to  which  the 
form  is  given  at  once  by  the  hand  of  the  artist.  When 
the  form  is  gradually  brought  on  by  the  plastick  pow- 
ers of  nature,  the  secret  process  is  called  generation  : 
which  is  therefore  but  a  sort  of  making,  and  differs 
from  that  which  is  usually  called  a  making,  in  the 
means  only  by  which  the  end  is  compassed.  Athenago- 
ras  therefore  gives  the  emperors  a  caution,  not  to  under, 
stand  by  the  generation  of  the  Son,  a  generation  in  the 
literal  sense  of  the  word,  which  comes  under  the  gener- 
al notion  of  a  making  :  not  to  understand  by  it  any  thing 
like  that  natural  process,  by  which  the  bodies  of  plants 
and  animals,  and  some  other  substances,  are  carried 
forward  from  a  potential  to  an  actual  existence.  The 
generation  of  the  Son  cannot  be  understood,  he  says, 


A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLERGY.  £5 

of  any  such  production,  because  his  actual  existence  is 
from  eteruity.     This,  he  says,  is  the  necessary  conse- 
quence of  the  confessed  eternity  of  the   Father.     The 
Logos  hath  existed  from  eternity,  in  union  with  the  Fa- 
ther ;  "  because  God,  being  eternally  rational,  ever  had 
the  Logos  in  himself."   -The  sense  is,  that  the  personal 
subsistence  of  a  Divine  Logos  is  implied  in  the  very 
idea  of  a  God.     And  the  argument  rests  on  a  principle 
which  was  common  to  all  the  Piatonick  fathers,  and 
seems  to  be  founded  in  Scripture,  that  the  existence  of 
the  Son,  flows  necessarily  from  the  Divine  Intellect  ex- 
erted on  itself;  from  the  Father's  contemplation  of  his 
own  perfections.     But  as  the  Father  ever  was,  his  per- 
fections have  ever  been,  and  his  intellect  hath  been  ever 
active.     But  perfections,  which  have  ever  been,  the  ever 
active  Intellect  must  ever  have  contemplated  ;  and  the 
contemplation  which  hath  ever  been,  must  ever  have 
been  accompanied  with  its  just  effect,  the  personal  exis- 
tence of  the  Son.     Athenagoras  having  thus  proved, 
that  the  generation  of  the  Son  can  he  only  a  figurative 
generation,  proceeds  to  explain  the  figure,  by  assigning 
the  particular  transaction  to  which  he  conceives  it  to 
allude  :  which  is  no  commencement  of  the  Son's  exist- 
ence ;  not  even  that  act  of  the  Paternal  Mind,  in  which 
the  existence  of  the  Son  originates;  but  the  going  forth 
of  the  Son  to  exert  his  powers  in  the  business  of  crea- 
tion.    "  He  is,"  says  Athenagoras,  « to  the  Father  as 
the  first  offspring  ;  not  as  something  that  was  ever  made : 
but  that  he  went  forth  to  be  idea  and  energy  in  material 
substances,  which  lay  yet  in  chaos,  unqualified  and  un- 
distinguished ;  the  dense  promiscuously  mingled  with 
the  rare,  waiting  the  operation  of  the  active  spirit  to  jnv 


6(5  A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLttlltiY. 

pregnate  them  with  fqrm."*  Here,  indeed,  the  8011  of 
God  is  called  an  idea,  and  an  energy.  But  it  is  not, 
that  he  is  understood  to  be  an  unsubstantial  idea,  or  en- 
ergy, of  the  Paternal  Mind  ;  but  a  living  idea,  energiz- 
ing on  the  matter  of  the  universe,  to  stamp  it  with  the 
forms  of  things.  And  his  generation  is  affirmed  to  be 
no  commencement  of  his  existence,  but  the  first  exertion 
of  his  powers  in  the  production  of  external  substances  : 
or,  to  use  a  more  Platonick  phrase,  the  first  projection  of 
liis  energies.  7rpo€o*n  TUV  htpyvpotlw. 

6.  If  any  thing  be  justly  reprehensible  in  the  notions 
of  the  Platonick  Christians,  it  is  this  conceit,  which 
seems  to  be  common  to  Athenagoras  with  them  all,  and 
Is  a  key  to  the  meaning  of  many  obscure  passages  in 
their  writings,  that  the  external  display  of  the  powers  of 
the  Son,  in  the  business  of  creation,  is  the  thing  intend- 
ed, in  the  Scripture  language,  under  the  figure  of  his 


a-werem;,  rx&vav  v/xtv  ttraw,  o    Trauf  TI 
va>  v&ly,  ax.  *?  yivopvcv'  t£  *?%»(  >*£ 
euro?  tv  Ui'jreu    TOV   Ao^ev'    etiiimg    Koyta^    or  <*\x'   «c    TM  vKtuotv    fu/<vr3iy',' 

won^utvcev  ftr-M,  fxejuuyjjitvwv  vctv  Trct^ 

i£*&  KAI  t'.'tp^-tiA  w*j  Tr^ih&ow.  Tliere  seems  to  be  some  corruption  in  the 
words  nau  yis,  A  learned  clergyman  of  the  archdeaconry  of  St.  Alban's^  conjectures, 
that  >»f  should  be  T«C.  Nor  can  I  devise  any  better  emendation.  The  general 
sense  of  the  passage  cannot  but  be  very  clear,  to  those  to  whom  the  imagery  of  the 
Platonists  is  in  any  degree  familiar. 

A  passage  of  Hermes  Trismegistus,  preserved  by  Snidas,  awl  Cedrenus,  and 
Melela,  may  somewhat  illustrate  this  passage  of  Athenagoras.  Hv  pa;  v;spcv  Trp 
HAI  xfiv  Clcfov  w  »'  TX?^  tv&w  «*«»  «•/  tauJce  uv,  a.u  -rai  tx-Jlx  vot  x.xi  Quit  x*; 
tvlat,  mpK'/U'  oc]o;  T«7»  K'  •S'fo?,  ttx.  at*  /i/,^1,  K  jaUfAeev,  an  scr/x  T/f  &M>rxaiviav 
yap  xvfioff  Kan  3iesf,  asu  ?r*7«/>,  nau  vrAvl*  VTT  stvlx  KOU  sr  etulu  Ktv.  o  yatp  Acyo;  etvl* 
Trawl t\ti&  XAI  yovifA®1  **/  JnfAtxftx  tv  ywifAte  vfafli  Trtroav*  ty-xvov  JTJWCTJ  TO 


*  Malt-la  has  &  liyiy.di  <t-*/yu  7rwuvt  for  w 


A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLERGY.  fjy 

generation.*  A  conceit  which  seems  to  have  no  certain 
foundation  in  holy  writ,  and  no  authority  in  the  opinions 
and  the  doctrines  of  the  preceding  age  :  and  it  seems  to 
have  betrayed  some  of  those  who  were  the  most  wedded 
to  it,  into  the  use  of  a  very  improper  language ;  as  if  a 
new  relation  had  taken  place  between  the  first  and  the 
second  person,  when  the  creative  powers  were  first  ex- 
erted. The  indiscretion  of  presuming  to  affix  a  deter- 
minate meaning  upon  a  figurative  expression,  of  which 
no  particular  exposition  can  be  safely  drawn  from  holy 
writ,  is  in  some  degree  atoned  by  the  object  which  these 
writers  had  in  view.  It  was  evidently  their  intention, 
to  guard  the  expressions  of  Scripture  from  misconstruc- 
tion. They  thought  to  lead  men  away  from  the  notion 
of  a  literal  generation,  by  assigning  to  the  figure  a  par- 
ticular meaning,  which  it  might  naturally  bear,  and 
which,  whether  it  was  the  true  sense  of  it  or  no,  seemed 
not  to  clash  with  any  explicit  part  of  the  revelation. 
The  conversion  of  an  attribute  into  a  person,  whatever 
Dr  Priestley  may  imagine,  is  a  notion  to  which  they 
were  entire  strangers.  They  held  indeed,  that  the 
existence  of  the  Son  necessarily  and  inseparably  attach- 
ed to  the  attributes  of  the  Paternal  Mind  :  insomuch 
that  the  Father  could  no  more  be  without  the  Son,  than 
without  his  own  attributes.  But  that  the  Sou  had  been 
a  mere  attribute,  before  he  became  a  person  ;  or  that  the- 
Paternal  attributes  were  older  than  the  Son's  personal 
existence,  is  a  doctrine  which  they  would  have  heard 
with  horror  and  amazement.  With  horror  as  Chris- 
tians ;  with  amazement  as  philosophers  ! 


:he  tliirteenth  of  my  Letters  in  reply,  sec.  12,.  15. 


Qg  A  CHARGE  TO  TITK  CLEP/JV, 

7-  It  is  but  justice  to  Dr  Priestley,  to  acknowledge, 
what  indeed  he  ought  to  have  acknowledged  for  himself, 
that  in  this  misinterpretation  of  the  Platonick  fathers, 
he  is  not  original :  that  he  hath  upon  his  side  the  re- 
spectable authority  of  two  very  eminent  divines  of  the 
Roman  church, — Petavius  and  Huetius  :  which  however 
is  no  more  than  a  single  authority ;  the  pious  bishop  of 
Avranches,  upon  this  subject,  being  but  the  echo  of  the 
very  learned  Jesuit.  It  is  not  the  season  to  revive  past 
quarrels :  one  is  therefore  unwilling  to  recollect  thfc 
motives,  which  induced  Petavius  to  belie  his  better 
knowledge,  and  to  charge  the  philosophical  fathers  of 
the  second  century  with  errors,  which  he  was  too  learn- 
ed not  to  know  no  Platonist  could  entertain.  But  at 
the  time  when  Petavius  wrote,  the  minds  of  the  most 
enlightened  and  liberal  of  the  Romanists,  were  so  ill 
reconciled  to  the  separation  of  the  reformed  churches  from 
their  communion,  that  it  was  the  fashion  for  the  cham- 
pions of  the  Papal  superstition,  in  order  to  weaken  the 
support  which  they  were  sensible  the  Protestant  cause 
received,  from  the  writings  of  the  fathers  of  the  three 
first  centuries,  to  take  every  method  to  derogate  from 
their  authority.  And  this,  it  was  thought,  could  in  no 
way  be  more  effectually  done,  than  by  bringing  them 
under  a  suspicion  of  misbelief,  in  doctrines  which  the 
reformed  churches,  and  the  Roman,  hold  in  equal  re- 
verence. The  learned  Petavius  considered  not,  that 
he  sacrificed  the  cause  of  our  common  Christianity  to 
the  private  views  of  his  own  church,  in  thus  attempting 
to  corrupt  the  stream  of  tradition  at  the  very  fountain- 
head.  His  arguments,  which  Dr  Priestley  hath  at- 
tempted to  revive,  are  examined  and  confuted  with 
great  erudition  and  ability,  by  the  excellent  Bishop 


A  ClIAUGU  TO  THE  CLKIIGY.  gj) 

Bull,  in  the  third   section  of  his  "Defence  of  the 
Nicene  Faith. 

8.  The  last  specimen  which  1  shall  produce,  of  Dr 
Priestley's  manner  of  arguing  from  authorities,  shall  be 
taken  from  his  short  account  of  the  word  TRINITY.* 
This  word,  he  says,  first  made  Us  appearance  in  the 
writings  of  Theophilus,  bishop  of  Antioch.  But  DP 
Priestley  thinks  "  it  is  not  clear  that  by  it  he  meant,  a 
Trinity  consisting  of  the  same  persons  that  it  was  after- 
wards made  to  consist  of :"  and  he  affirms,  that  it  is  cer- 
tain, a  Trinity  of  persons  in  the  Godhead,  was  not 
meant  by  Theophilus;  and  thus  Theophilus  for  the  second 
time,  is  brought  to  give  evidence  against  his  own  opinion. 
But  whence  arises  the  certainty,  that  a  Trinity  of  persons 
is  not  meant  by  Theophilus?  From  no  other  circumstance, 
that  I  can  perceive,  but  that  the  word  Trinity  is  expressly 
expounded  in  the  text  of  Theophilns,  by  God,  his  Word, 
and  his  Wisdom.  "  The  three  days,"  says  Theophi- 
lus, "  which  preceded  the  creation  of  the  luminaries, 
were  types  of  the  Trinity  ;  of  God,  and  of  his  Word, 
and  of  his  Wisdom."f  It  hath  already  been  observed, 
that  God,  his  Word,  and  his  Wisdom,  in  the  phraseol- 
ogy of  Theophilus's  age,  were  used  for  Father,  Son, 
and  Holy  Ghost.  It  is  unnecessary,  in  this  assembly, 
to  cite  the  numerous  examples  that  occur  in  Theophilus, 
Tatian,  Irenseus,  and  Origen.  It  may  be  more  useful 


*  Hist  of  Corrup.  vol.  i.  p.  93.       , . 

•J-  uj-ituieif  KJU*  au  T$«C  H/m^su  (T&  T< 
e*,  **/  TIC  As>«  *yj»,  xsu'  T»C  2s<?w  ajis.  Theoph.  ad  Autolyc.  lib.  ii.  p.  106. 
O\o'..  1684.  I  have  token  the  liberty  to  insert  the  prepositioa  rgj,  the  want  of  it 
tr/lug  evidently  an  omission. 


^(j  A  U1AUC11  TO  THE  CLKKGV. 

to  explain  the  grounds  upon  which,  as  I  conceive,  this 
language  was  adopted. 

9.  We  have  seen  that  the  Platonick  fathers,  although 
they  held  the  eternity  of  the  second  person  no  less  than 
of  the  first,  imagined,  that  his  generation  signified  a  par- 
ticular transaction,  which  took  place  at  a  certain  time. 
And  it  is  probable  that,  although  they  held  the  eternity 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  yet  they  conceived,  that  the  proces- 
sion expressed  some  projection  of  his  energies,  which 
took  place  at  the  same  time  with  that,  which  they  under- 
stood to  be  the  generation  of  the  Son.  They  imagined, 
that  the  second  person  was  not  properly  a  Son,  before 
that  event,  which  they  understood  by  his  generation  : 
and  they  would  equally  imagine,  that  the  third  was  not 
properly  the  Spirit,  before  the  event  which  they  under- 
stood by  his  procession.  But  they  conceived,  that  the 
second  person  had  ever  been  the  Word,  and  that  the 
third  had  ever  been  the  Wisdom.  Of  the  first  they  con- 
ceived, that  he  was  not  properly  a  Father,  before  the  se- 
cond  was  a  Son ;  although  he  ever  had  been  God.  I 
have  already  given  my  opinion  of  these  subtle  distinc- 
tions ;  for  which  the  best  apology  (for  an  apology  they 
need)  is  the  evident  good  intention  of  the  writers,  who 
first  maintained  them.  But  upon  these  distinctions, 
whether  just  or  visionary,  their  phraseology  seems  to 
have  been  founded.  They  thought  the  names  of  God, 
the  Word,  and  the  Wisdom,  which  express  of  each  of 
the  three  divine  persons,  what  each  hath  always  been  ; 
were  appellations  to  be  generally  preferred  to  those  of 
Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost ;  which  express  relations 
only,  which,  according  to  their  fancy,  had  not  always 
been.  And  this  explains  the  reason,  why  they  used 


A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLERGY.  y^ 

the  word  GOD,  as  the  peculiar  appellation  of  the  Father. 
It  was  not  that  they  scrupled  to  ascribe  an  equal  divin- 
ity to  all  the  three  Persons  ;  but  that,  rejecting  the  sim- 
pler nomenclature  founded  on  relations,  they  desired  to 
call  each  person,  by  the  name  which  they  conceived  to 
be  most  descriptive  of  his  essence  :  and  of  the  essence  of 
the  Father,  they  could  find  no  name  at  all  descriptive, 
but  the  general  appellation, — God. 

10.  The  three  names  therefore,  God,  the  Word,  and 
the  Wisdom,  in  the  language  of  Theophilus's  age,  were 
understood  to  be  equivalent  to  Father,  Son,  and  Holy 
Ghost :  and  when  Theophilus  expounds  the  word  TRI- 
NITY, by  God,  his  Word,  and  his  Wisdom,  it  is  just  the 
same  thing  as  if  he  had  rendered  it  by  Father,  Son,  and 
Holy  Ghost.     How  this  exposition  may  create  a  doubt, 
whether  Theophilus's  Trinity  consisted  of  the  same 
persons  with  the  Trinity  of  later  ages ;  how  it  may  pro- 
duce a  certainty,  that  Theophilus's  \vas  not  a  Trinity  of 
persons  in  the  Godhead,  it  is  not  my  business  to  explain. 
Dr  Priestley  should  have  opened  this  mystery ;  but  he 
hath  not  condescended  to  give  his  readers  any  farther 
light  than  his  own  naked  assertion,  that  the  thing  is,  as 
he  would  choose  that  it  should  be ;  which  in  this,  as  in 
other  cases,  he  seems  to  think  may  pass  for  a  sufficient 
proof,  of  any  of  the  paradoxes  of  his  own  party. 

11.  Perhaps  his  doubt  about  the  real  meaning  of  the 
word,  and  his  confident  persuasion  that  it  was  no  Trin- 
ity of  persons  in  the  Godhead,  have  arisen  from  the  ob- 
scurity of  which  he  complains,  in  the  subsequent  part  of 
the  sentence,  where  the  Word  and  the  Wisdom  are 
mentioned  again.     It  is  indeed  but  reasonable  to  sup- 
pose, that  these  words   are  used  in  the  same  sense  in 
both  places.    But  in  this  second  place,  the  Wisdom, 


££  A  CilAKGE  TO  THE  CLERGY. 

Dr  Priestley  might  imagine,  could  be  no  divine  person. 
For  in  Dr  Priestley's  English,  the  latter  clause  of  the 
sentence  runs  thus  :  «  The  fourth  day  is  the  type  of 
Man,  who  needs  light,  that  the  Word  may  be  God.  and 
the  Man  Wisdom."  This  passage,  Dr  Priestley  ob- 
serves, is  "  certainly  obscure  enough."  You  all,  1  am 
persuaded,  agree  in  the  truth  of  his  remark ;  and  you 
\vill  equally  agree  in  mine,  if  1  venture  to  say  much 
more  of  the  latter  clause  :  that  it  is  certainly  unintelligi- 
ble— in  Dr  Priestley's  translation.  But  turn  to  the  ori- 
ginal— the  whole  obscurity  will  vanish  ;  and  instead  of 
it,  you  will  find  that  striking  perspicuity  of  language, 
which  is  the  characteristick  beauty  of  Theophilus's  style. 
Having  said,  that  the  three  first  days  of  creation  were 
types  of  the  Trinity,  Theophilus  adds,  «  That  the  fourth 
was  a  type  of  Man,  who  is  in  need  of  light.  That  there 
might  be,  or,  so  that  there  is,  God,  the  Word,  the  Wis- 
dom, Man."*  This  last  clause  is  nothing  but  an  enu- 
meration of  all  that  had  been  mentioned,  as  typified  in 
the  first  four  days  of  creation.  To  explain  how  these 
days  were  types  of  what  they  are  supposed  to  represent, 
might  indeed  be  difficult :  but  in  the  age  of  Theophilus, 
the  great  art  of  interpreting  the  Old  Testament,  was 
supposed  to  consist  in  making  types  out  of  every  thing. 
The  sense,  however,  of  the  writer,  is  expressed  with 
the  greatest  perspicuity.  It  is  evident  from  his  own 
exposition  of  the  word,  that  he  speaks  of  no  other  Tri- 
nity than,  Father,  Son,  and  Roly  Ghost.  It  appears 
therefore,  from  the  testimony  of  Theophilus,  that  the 


fyy.viau,  Tumi  ttfftv    T/JC  T/)/*&r  Ttc 

**    T«   Ai}«  AlfliS,    H.Ct.t    T»?  2W3tf  A'JIX.    Ttl*4l»  ft  TVTc;     6?/V  aty-^WTK'  o'    TTfwffM  IK 

tv&  »'  O»;r,  Acj-cc,  2c?«,  Av&pwret.    AU  Autolyc.  lib.  ii.  p.  106.    Oxon.  1684. 


A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLERGY.  73 

was  used  at  first  in  no  other  sense,  than  that  which 
it  hath  borne  in  later  ages.  The  word  hath  not  changed 
its  original  meaning ;  but  in  this,  as  in  most  of  his  as- 
sertions, Dr  Priestley  is  confuted  by  his  own  authori- 
ties. 

12.  I  feel  no  satisfaction  in  detecting  the  weaknesses 
of  this  learned  writer's  argument,  but  what  arises  from 
a  consciousness,  that  it  is  a  discharge  of  some  part  of 
the  duty,  which  I  owe  to  the  church  of  God.  It  is  a 
mortifying  proof  of  the  infirmity  of  the  human  mind,  iu 
the  highest  improvement  of  its  faculties  in  the  present 
life,  that  such  fallacies  iu  reasoning,  such  misconstruc- 
tions of  authorities,  such  distorted  views  of  facts  and 
opinions,  should  be  found  in  the  writings  of  a  man,  to 
whom,  of  all  men  of  the  present  age,  some  branches  of 
the  experimental  sciences  are  the  most  indebted. 

V. 

1.  May  I  be  permitted  to  close  this  long  address, 
with  a  word  of  exhortation  to  the  younger  members  of 
the  priesthood. 

2.  The  actual  state  of  things  is  such,  that,  to  the 
greater  part  of  those  who  engage  in  it,  our  holy  profes- 
sion must  furnish  the  means  of  a  subsistence.     The  con- 
sequence is,  that  we  are  obliged  to  enter  upon  it  in  an 
early  season  of  our  lives,  when  it  is  well  if  we  have 
previously  laid  a  good  foundation  in  our  minds,  of  the 
very  first  principles  of  the  doctrine  of  Christ :  and  a  due 
proficiency  in  the  theological  studies,  must  be  the  attain- 
ment of  future  industry.     To  the  novitiates  therefore  of 
our  order,  considered  as  unfinished  theologians,  I  take 
the  liberty  to  recommend  the  diligent  study  of  the  works 
of  Bishop  Bull ;  especially  of  his  writings  on  the  sub- 
ject of  the  Trinity,  with  the  annotations  of  Grabe.  his 

10 


y%  A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLERGY. 

learned  editor.  In  these,  they  will  find  an  exact  and 
critical  detail,  of  the  opinions  of  the  fathers  of  the  three 
first  centuries.  They  will  find  the  faith  of  the  church 
of  England  confirmed,  and  proved  to  be  the  original 
faith,  by  a  tradition,  traced  with  certainty  to  the  apos- 
lolick  age.  And  they  will  find  every  argument  refuted, 
which  the  Unitarian  party  have  yet  been  able  to  form, 
upon  their  own  views,  of  the  opinions  of  the  earliest 
ages. 

3.  The  study  of  Bishop  Bull,  if  leisure  is  not  want- 
ing,  may  be  followed  or  accompanied  with  advantage, 
by  that  of  the  ecclesiastical  historians  ;  of  the  original 
historians,  I  mean,  Eusebius,  Socrates,  Sozomen,  and 
Theodoret.     As  for  modern  histories,  the  use  of  them, 
without  a  previous  acquaintance  with  the  ancient  writers, 
is  rather  to  be  discouraged  than  recommended.     By 
those  who  are  already  learned  in  the  subject,  they  may 
be  read  indeed  with  emolument ;  as  commentaries  on 
the  ancient  text  of  history,  as  it  lies  in  the  original 
writers,  which  may  occasionally  throw  light  upon  dark 
and  doubtful  questions.     But,  as  books  of  elementary 
instruction  for  beginners,  they  will  generally  be  perni- 
cious ;  for  it  will  too  often  be  found  to  be  the  case,  that 
the  narrative  is  accommodated,  not  through  premeditated 
fraud,  but  in  the  mere  error  of  prejudice,  either  to  the 
private  opinions  of  the  writer,  or  to  the  interests  of  his 
sect.     Of  this,  Dr  Priestley's  work  is  a  striking  exam- 
pie.    No  work  was  perhaps  ever  sent  abroad,  under 
the  title  of  a  history,  containing  less  of  truth  than  his,  in 
proportion  to  its  volume. 

4.  From  ecclesiastical  history,  the  student  learns 
what  the  faith  of  the  church  hath  at  all  times  been ; 
and  he  is  enabled  to  separate  the  pure  doctrine  of  the 


A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLERGY.  y^ 

first  age,  from  all  later  innovations :  a  matter  at  all  times 
of  the  highest  moment ;  bnt  of  particular  importance  in 
the  present  juncture,  when  the  whole  ability  and  learn- 
ing of  the  Unitarian  party  is  exerted,  to  wrest  from  us 
the  argument  from  tradition.     The  importance  of  the 
argument  from  tradition,  rests  upon  the  supposed  infal- 
libility of  the  first  preachers.     The  opinion  of  their  inr 
fallibility,  rests  upon  the  belief  of  their  divine  illumina- 
tion*   The  consequence  of  a  divine  illumination  is,,  that 
their  whole  doctrine  must  have  been — not  indeed  ob- 
vious to  the   human    understanding — not  within    the 
reach  of  its  unassisted  power  to  discover — but  consonant 
to  the  highest  reason,  nor  too  difficult,  when  propounded, 
for  the  human  apprehension  ;  and  though  aot  free  from 
paradoxes,  certainly  not  encumbered  with  contradictions. 
No   tradition   therefore  may  avail  to  prove,  that   any 
manifest  contradiction;  that  a  part,  for  instance,  is  equal 
to  the  whole,  or  that  the  same  thing  in  the  same  respect, 
is  at  the  same  time  one  and  many,  was  a  part  of  the 
apostolick  doctrine  ;  if  the  inspiration  of  the  apostles  be 
admitted.     Or,  if  it  should  appear,  from. the  evidence  of  a 
tradition  which  cannot  reasonably  be  questioned,  that 
the  apostles  really  required  the  belief  of  contradictions 
under  the  name  of  mysteries  ;  their  pretence  to  inspira- 
tion will  be  refuted,  and  the  credit  of  their  doctrine 
overturned.     For  as  tho  evidence  of  intuition  is  fur  su- 
perior to  that  of  sense  ;  no  external  evidence  may  estab- 
lish the  belief  of  a  contradiction  ;  since  no  testimony  that 
a  contradiction  is,  should  be  allowed  to  overpower  the 
intuitive  conviction   that  it  cannot  be.      An  inquiry, 
therefore,  into  the  reasonableness  of  our  faith,  as  well 
as  just  views  of  its  history,  is  of  great  importance. 
5.  The  reasonableness  of  our  faith  will  be  best  un-» 


y5  A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLERGY. 

derstood,  from  the  writings  of  the  fathers  of  the  three 
first  centuries.     And  among  these,  those  wicked  Pla- 
tonists  of  ther  second  age,  who,  in  Dr  Priestley's  judg- 
ment, sowed  the  seeds  of  the  anticnristian   corruption, 
deserve  particular  attention ;  for  the  great  perspicuity 
with  which,  in  general,  they  expound  the  faith,  and  the 
great  ability  with  which  they  defend  it.     And  as  these 
corrupters,  brought  with  them  into  the  church  the  Ian- 
guage  of  their  school,  (I  say  the  language,  for  its  opin- 
ions, except  so  far  as  they  harmonized  with  the  gospel, 
they  had  the  ingenuity  to  retract,*)  the  writings  of  the 
Pagan  philosophers,  particularly  the  Platonists,  will  be 
of  considerable  use  to  the  Christian  student ;  as  they  will 
bring  him  more  acquainted  with  a  phraseology,  which 
is  used  even  by  the  Christian  Platonists :  nor  for  this 
purpose  only,  but  for  some  degree  of  light  which  they 
will  throw  upon  the  argument.     The  error  of  the  later 
Platonists  was,  that  they  warped  the  genuine  doctrine 
of  the  original  tradition,  their  OtoarafaSo/ec  ©w*oy/a,  to  a 
form  in  which  it  might  be  in  friendship  with  the  popular 
idolatry.     Their  writings  therefore  are  a  mine,  in  which 
the  true  metal  is,  indeed,  mingled  with  a  dross  of  hete- 
rogeneous substances ;  but  yet,  the  richness  of  the  ore 
is  such,  as  may  well  repay  the  cost  and  trouble  of  the 
separation.     Or,  if  leisure  should  be  wanting,  for  a 
minute  study  of  a  subject  which  may  seem  but  of  a  se- 
condary importance  ;  it  will  at  least  be  expedient,  I  had 
almost  said  it  will  be  necessary,  to  know  so  much  of  the 
opinions  of  heathen  antiquity,  as  is  to  be  learned  from 
those  authentick  documents,  which  the  industry  of  the 


*  See  the  beginning  of  Justin  Martyr's  Dialogue  with  Trypho;  sin!  Thcoph. 
ad  Autolyck,  lib.  ii. 


A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLERGY.  yy 

indefatigable  Cudworth  hath  collected  and  arranged, 
with  great  judgment,  in  his  Intellectual  System. 

6.  The  advantage  to  be  expected  from  these  deep 
researches,  is  not  any  insight  into  the  manner  in  which 
the  three  Divine  Persons  are  united ;    a  knowledge, 
which  is  indeed  too  high  for  man,  perhaps  for  angels ; 
which,  in  our  present  condition  at  least,  is  not  to  be 
attained,  and  ought  not  to  be  sought ;    but  that  just 
apprehension  of  the  Scripture  doctrine,  which  will  show 
that  it  is  not  one  of  those  tilings  that  u  no  miracles  can 
prove/'*  will  be  the  certain  fruit  of  the  studies  recom- 
mended.    They  will  lead  us  to  see  the  Scripture  doc- 
trine in  its  true  light :  that  it  is  an  imperfect  discovery, 
not  a  contradiction.     That  the   Catholick  faith  is  not 
properly  compared  with  the  tale  of  Mahomet's  journey 
to  the  third  heaven  ;  his  conferences  there,  while  the 
pitcher  of  water  fell ;  or  even  with  the  doctrine  of  tran- 
substantiation  :f    that  even  the   Athanasian   creed,  is 
something  very  different  from,  a  set  '<  of  contradictions 
the  most  direct  which  any  person,  the  most  skilled  in 
logick,  might  draw    up"J — a    censure,    which   could 
hardly  have  fallen  from  our  learned  adversary,  Unita- 
rian as  he  is,  had  he  but  known  so  common  a  book  as 
Dr  Waterland's  History  and  Paraphrase.     In  the  opin- 
ions of  the  Pagan  Platonists,  we  have  in  some  degree 
an  experimental  proof,  that  this  abstruse  doctrine  cannot 
be  the  absurdity,  which  it  seems  to  those  who  misunder- 


*  "  They  are  things  which  no  miracles  can  prove,"  says  Dr  Priestley,  in  his 
.\ddress   to    Mr    Gibbon,   speaking  of  the   doctrines  of  the    Trinity,  and  th* 
\tonement.    See  Hist,  of  Cqrrup.  vol.  ii.  p.  861. 

f  Hist,  of  Corrup.  vol.  ii.  p.  461. 

*  Ibid.  vol.  i.  p.  87. 


1^3  A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLERGY. 

stand  it.  Would  Plato,  would  Porphyry,  would  even 
Flotinus,  have  believed  the  miracles  of  Mahomet,  or 
the  doctrine  of  transubstantiation  ?  But  they  all  belie- 
ved a  doctrine,  which,  so  far  at  least,  resembles  the 
Nicene,  as  to  be  loaded  with  the  same,  or  greater  ob- 
jections. By  every  one,  who  will  thus  combine  the 
studies  of  divinity  and  philosophy,  the  truth  of  Plato's 
observation,  I  am  persuaded,  will  be  soon  experienced: 
that,  to  those  who  apply  themselves  to  these  speculations, 
with  a  humble  disposition  to  be  taught,  rather  than  with 
the  unphilosophical  and  irreligious  habit,  of  deciding 
hastily  upon  the  first  view  of  difficulties  ;  what  at  first 
appeared  the  most  incredible^  will,  in  the  end,  seem  the 
most  evident  and  certain  ;  and  maxims,  which  seemed  at 
first  indisputable,  will  be  discarded.* 

7»  An  extensive  erudition  in  Pagan,  as  well  as  Chris- 
tian antiquity,  joined  with  a  critical  understanding  of 
the  sacred  text ;  is  that  which  hath  so  long  enabled  the 
clergy  of  the  church  of  England,  to  take  the  lead  among 
Protestants,  as  the  apologists  of  the  apostolick  faith  and 
discipline ;  and  to  baffle  the  united  strength  of  their 
adversaries,  of  all  denominations.  God  forbid,  that 
through  an  indolence,  which  would  be  unpardonable, 
we  should  ever  lose  the  superiority  which  we  have  so 
long  maintained.  The  acquisition  of  learning  is  indeed 
laborious,  but  the  fruit  is  sweet.  The  private  satisfac- 
tion that  it  must  give,  to  every  minister  of  the  church  of 
England,  to  understand,  that  his  engagements  to  the 
establishment,  are  perfectly  consistent  with  his  higher 
obligations  to  God  and  Christ;  is  alone  sufficient,  to 


*  Plato  in  Epist.  ad  Dionys. 


A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLERGY.  ^g 

repay  the  labour  of  the  studies,  which  afford  this  com- 
fortable conviction,  and  contribute  to  its  daily  growth. 
But  private  satisfaction  is  not  the  end  of  our  pursuits. 
The  nobler  end  is  publick  edification.  It  is  a  maxim 
of  Dr  Priestley's,  that  every  man,  who  in  his  conscience 
dissents  from  the  established  church,  is  obliged  in  con- 
science  to  be  a  declared  dissenter.  I  honour  the  gene- 
rosity of  the  sentiment. 


ur. 


It  ought,  much  more,  to  be  the  sentiment  of  every  one 
\vlio  stands  with  the  received  doctrine,  —  to  be  a  declared 
churchman.     If  he   would  reap  any  solid   advantage 
from  the  purity  of  his  faith,  he  must  be  an  open  and 
avowed  believer  ;  lest,  if  he  confess  not  Christ,  his  God 
and  Saviour,  before  men,  he  should  not  be  at  last  con- 
fessed before  the  angels  of  heaven.     If  this  confession 
be  the  general  duty  of  every  man,  who  feels  conviction  ; 
it  is  the  particular  duty  of  every  man,  who  hath  been 
called  to  the  evangelist's  office.     He  holds  the  authority 
of  his  commission  for  no  other  purpose,  but  to  be  a  wit- 
ness of  the  truth.     A  conviction  that  it  is  the  truth, 
founded  on  a  deep  investigation  of  the  subject,  will  sup- 
ply  him  with  firmness,  to  persevere  in  the  glorious  at- 
testation, unawed  by  the  abilities  of  his  antagonists,  un- 
daunted by  obloquy,  unmoved  by  ridicule  :  which  seem 
to  be  the  trials  which  God  hath  appointed,  instead  of 
persecution,  in  the  present  age,  to  prove  the  sincerity 
and  patience  of  the  faithful*    The.  advocate   of  that 


80 


A  CUAKGfi  TO  THIS  CLERGY. 


sound  form  of  words,  which  was  originally  delivered  to 
the  saints,  hath  to  expect  that  his  opinions  will  he  the 
open  jest  of  the  Unitarian  party  :  that  his  sincerity  will 
be  called  in  question :  or,  if  "a  bare  possibility  of  his 
being  in  earnest"*  be  charitably  admitted,  the  misfor- 
tune of  his  education  will  be  lamented,  and  his  preju- 
dices deplored.  All  this  insult  will  not  alarm  nor  dis- 
compose  him.  He  will  rather  glory  in  the  recollection, 
that  his  adherence  to  the  faith  of  the  first  ages  hath  pro- 
voked it.  The  conviction,  which  he  will  all  the  while 
enjoy,  that  his  philosophy  is  Plato's  and  his  creed  St 
John's,  will  alleviate  the  mortification  he  might  other- 
wise feel  in  differing  from  Dr  Priestley  :  nor  suffer  him 
to  think  the  evil  insupportable,  although  the  consequence 
of  this  dissent,  should  be,  that  he  must  share  with  the 
excellent  Bishop  of  Worcester,  in  Dr  Priestley's  "  pity 
and  indignation."!  Not  indeed  that  he  will  hold  any 
good  man's  good  opinion  cheap ;  or  esteem  it  a  light 
evil,  that  a  conscientious  attachment  to  the  truth,  should 
embroil  him  with  those,  whose  talents  he  will  revere, 
and  whose  virtues  he  will  love.  But  he  will  esteem  it 
but  a  temporary  evil :  an  evil  which  providence,  in 
mercy,  hath  appointed  for  the  trial  of  his  faith,  and  the 
improvement  of  his  habits  of  disinterested  obedience :  an 
evil,  therefore,  which  the  spirit  of  a  Christian  will  sup. 
port ;  suffering  neither  the  misfortune  to  deject,  nor  the 
injury  to  irritate.  Adoring  the  wisdom  of  that  myste- 


*  llist.  of  Corrup.  vol.  ii.  p.  471. 

•j'  "  To  see  such  men  as  Bishop  Kurd  in  this  class  of  writers,  (the  defenders 
«f  the  establishment,)  when  he  is  qualified  to  class  with  Tillofson,  Hoadley,  and 
Clarke;  equally  excites  one's  pity  and  indignation."  llist.  of  Corrup.  vol.  ii. 
p.  471. 


A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLEHGY.  g£ 

rious  dispensation,  which,  to  heighten  human  virtue, 
ordains  that  it  should  often  miss  the  reward,  which  dis- 
interested virtue  ever  covets  most ;  of  that  dispensation, 
which  makes  even  error  and  rash  judgment,  a  useful 
part  of  the  discipline  of  the  present  life  :  he  will  not 
disgrace  the  cause  which  he  should  support,  by  any  un- 
charitable  conclusions  concerning  the  actual  motives,  or 
the  future  doom,  of  those  whose  opinions  he  may  think 
it  his  duty  to  oppose.  Nor,  in  the  necessary  asperity 
of  debate,  will  he  hastily  retaliate  their  unjust  asper- 
sions. He  will  admit  much  more  than  a  possibility, 
that  Dr  Priestley  may  be  in  earnest  in  all  his  misinter- 
pretations of  the  Scriptures  and  the  fathers,  and  in  all  hig 
misrepresentations  of  facts.  Appearances  to  the  con- 
trary, however  strong,  he  will  refer  to  the  fascinating 
power  of  prejudice,  and  to  the  delusive  practice  uf  look- 
ing through  authors,*  which  the  historian  of  religious 
opinions  ought  to  have  read.  Though  truth,  in  these 
controversies,  can  be  only  on  one  side ;  he  will  indulge, 
and  he  will  avow,  the  charitable  opinion,  that  sincerity 
may  be  on  both.  And  he  will  enjoy  the  reflection,  that 
by  an  equal  sincerity,  through  the  power  of  that  blood, 
which  was  shed  equally  for  all,  both  parties  may  at  last 
find  equal  mercy.  In  the  transport  of  this  holy  hope, 
he  will  anticipate  that  glorious  consummation,  when 
faith  shall  be  absorbed  in  knowledge ;  and  the  fire  of 
controversy  for  ever  quenched.  When  the  same  gene- 
rous  zeal  for  God  and  truth,  which  too  often,  in  this 


*  "  I  have  taken  a  good  deal  of  pains  to  read,  or  at  least,  look  carefully 
vhrough  muny  of  the  most  capital  works  of  the  ancient  Christian  writers."  Dr 
Pries'  If  )•'•  Preface,  p.  stii. 

11 


g£  A  CHARGE  TO  THE  CLEUGY. 

world  of  folly  and  confusion,  sets  those  at  widest  vari- 
ance, whom  the  similitude  of  virtuous  feelings  should 
the  most  unite — shall  be  the  cement  of  an  indissoluble 
friendship  ;  when  the  innumerable  multitude  of  all  na- 
tions, kindreds,  and  people,  (why  should  I  not  add  of 
all  sects  and  parties,)  assembled  round  the  throne,  shall, 
like  the  first  Christians,  be  of  one  soul  and  one  mind, 
giving  praise,  with  one  consent,  to  Him  that  sitteth  on 
the  throne,  and  to  the  Lamb  that  was  slain,  to  redeem 
them  by  his  blood. 


APPENDIX. 


WHILE  these  sheets  were  in  preparation  for  the  press 
Dr  Priestley  was  challenged  by  a  writer  in  the  Month- 
ly  Review,  for  June,  (who  the  eritick  may  be,  I  know 
not — he  appears  to  be  learned  in  ecclesiastical  history  ; 
and  I  am  well  pleased  to  find,  that  his  views  of  Dr 
Priestley's  argument,  in  many  particulars,  agree  with 
mine,)  Dr  Priestley  was  challenged  by  this  writer,  to 
point  out  the  particular  passages  in  Origen's  writings 
in  which  he  had  conceived  an  acknowledgment  of  the 
identity  of  the  Nazarenes  and  the  Ebionites  to  be  con- 
tained. Dr  Priestley's  Reply  hath  already  made  its 
appearance ;  in  which  he  is  reduced  to  the  necessity  of 
confessing,  that  he  hath  no  such  passage  to  produce.* 
Still,  however,  he  maintains,  that  the  identity  of  these 
sectaries,  although  not  acknowledged  by  Origen,  is  to  be 
inferred  from  Origen,  Epiphanius,  and  Eusebius.f  But 


See  Dr  Priestley's  Reply  to  the  Monthly  Review,  p.  5. 
See  Correqlioos  and  Additions,  &tc.  at  the  end  of  the  Replj, 


$±  APPENDIX, 

this  is  still  affirmed,  without  reference  to  the  particular 
passages,  either  of  Origen  or  of  Eusebius,  from  which 
the  inference  is  to  be  drawn :  nor  is  the  reader  informed, 
in  which  of  Origen's  works  that  description  is  to  be 
found,  of  the  opinions  of  the  Ebionites,  which  represents 
them  as  the  same  opinions  which  others  ascribe  to  the 
Nazarenes ;  and  makes  it  appear,  that  Origen  had  no 
idea  of  any  difference  between  the  two  sects.*     Dr 
Priestley  makes  a  reference  indeed  to  the  13th  tract  of 
Origen's  Commentary  upon  St  Matthew's  Gospel  ;f  but 
this  is  for  another  purpose :    fur  proof,  of  what  needs 
indeed  no  proof  at  all, — that  the  Ebionites  were  of  two 
sorts  ;  the  one  admitting,  the  other  denying,  the  miracu- 
lous conception,  while  both  rejected  the  divinity  of  the 
Redeemer.     What  proof  of  this  secondary  proposition 
is  to  be  found,  in  the  13th  of  the  Exegeticks  upon  St 
Matthew's  Gospel.  I  know  not.     I  suspect  an  error  of 
the  press ;  and  that  the  reference  should  have  been  to 
the  16th  of  the  Exegeticks,  in  the  3rd  section,  which 
treats  of  the  cure  of  the  blind  near  Jericho.     In  that 
transaction,  as  St  Mark  relates  it,  Origen  imagines,  that 
the  two  divisions  of  the  primitive  church,  the  Gentiles 
and  the  Jewish  converts,  are  allegorized.     Jericho  is  the 
world — The  multitudes  which  follow  our   Lord  from 
Jericho,  are  the  converts   from  Paganism  to  the  true 
faith ;  who  forsake  the  world,  to  follow  Christ — The 
blind  beggar  is  a  half-converted  Jew,  addicted  to  the 
Ebionsean  heresy ;  whose  eyes  are  at  last  opened  to 
the  truth  of  the  gospel.     If  this  be  not  the  reference 


*  Reply,  p.  5. 

f  Seu  the  References,  p.  4,  of  the  Reply. 


APPENDIX.  83 

which  Dr  Priestley  meant  to  make,  let  me  advise  him 
to  adopt  it  in  the  emended  edition  of  his  work,  which 
he  seems  to  promise.  Besides  that,  the  very  purport  of 
the  exposition,  which  places  the  characteristick  distinc- 
tion between  the  Gentile  and  the  Jew  convert,  in  a  be- 
lief or  disbelief  of  Christ's  divinity,  may  seem  to  mill- 
tate  strongly  for  his  favourite  opinion,  that  the  whole 
Hebrew  church  was  Unitarian  ;  he  will  find  one  sen- 
tence  in  particular  in  this  discourse,  or  a  part  at  least 
of  one  sentence,  which,  I  am  persuaded,  he  will  think 
worthy  to  be  written  in  characters  of  gold.  K*/ 
tint  rur  O.TTO  IvSa/WK  mrtveSlw  tie  rov  IV<TVV  rw  mpilv  vG 
yrinr,  Hi  ptv  Ix  Ma^/ac  xai  laxrup  otoju.tvar  aV/or  wat  crt  pw  ix. 
Motf  a?  pwne  xa;  TV  Si/*  *T\VfU$f.f  v  ^uwr  xai  pilot  ms  TTI^I 

aV/K  3eoxo>/<xf,  o^n  x.  r.  \. <c and   when  you 

consider,  what  belief  they  of  the  Jewish  race  who  believe 
in  Jesus,  entertain  of  the  Redeemer ;  some  thinking  that 
he  took  his  being  from  Mary  and  Joseph,  some  indeed 
from  Mary  only  arid  the  Divine  Spirit,  but  still  without 
any  belief  of  his  divinity ;  you  will  understand,  &c." 
These  expressions,  taken  by  themselves,  may  seem  to 
intimate,  that  the  sect  of  the  Ebionites,  in  its  two  great 
branches,  embraced,  in  the  time  of  Origen,  the  whole 
body  of  the  Hebrew  Christians.  But  let  the  learned 
reader  attentively  peruse  the  whole  discourse  ;  let  him 
consider  well  the  subject  and  the  style ;  and  he  will  per- 
ceive, that  as  the  subject  is  not  history,  neither  is  the 
style  of  the  sedate  historick  kind.  The  object  of  the 
discourse  is  to  spiritualize  a  plain  story :  an  attempt,  in 
which  the  imagination  of  the  writer  is  always  busier 
than  the  judgment :  and  the  style,  even  in  allusion  to 
historical  facts,  is  generally  rather  warm  than  exact; 
and  is  apt  to  border  on  the  vehement  and  the  exagge- 


86  APPENDIX. 

rated.  This  is  in  some  degree  the  case  in  this  discourse 
of  Origen's.  His  expressions  are  therefore  to  be  inter- 
preted, by  the  known  tenor  of  ecclesiastical  history : 
ecclesiastical  history  is  not  to  be  accommodated  to  his 
expressions.  That  the  Jewish  converts  were  remarka- 
bly prone  to  the  Ebionsean  heresy, from  which  the  Gentile 
churches  in  general  were  pure,  is  the  most  that  can  be 
concluded  from  this  passage,  strengthened  as  it  might  be 
with  another,  somewhat  to  the  same  purpose,  in  thft 
Commentaries  upon  St  John's  Gospel.  But  what  if  it 
were  proved,  that  the  whole  sect  of  the  Nazarenes  was 
absorbed  in  the  Ebionsean  heresy  in  the  days  of  Origen  ? 
What  evidence  would  that  afford  of  the  identity  of  the, 
Nazarenes  and  the  Ebionites,  in  earlier  times?  And 
even  that  identity,  if  it  were  proved,  what  evidence 
would  it  afford,  that  the  church  of  Jerusalem  had  been 
originally  Unitarian,  under  her  first  bishops  of  the  cir- 
cumcision ? 

2.  But  however  indecisive  the  pretended  testimony  of 
Origen  may  be,  Dr  Priestley  makes  himself  very  sure 
that  Epiphanius  is  on  his  side.  "  Epiphanius  expressly 
says,  that  Ebion  held  the  same  opinion  with  the  Naza- 
renes.*" The  only  inference  to  be  made  from  this  as- 
sertion, is  this  :  that  Dr  Priestley  hath  never  troubled 
himself  to  read  more  of  Epiphanius's  account  of  the 
Ebionites,  than  the  first  eleven  words  of  the  first  sen- 
tence. Had  he  read  the  first  sentence  to  the  end,  he 
would  have  found  that  Ebion,  although  he  arose  from 
the  school  of  the  Nazarenes,  and  held  similar  opinions, 
preached  also  other  doctrines,  of  which  he  was  the  first 


*  Reply,  p.  4. 


APPENDIX.  §y 

inventor.  Among  these  novelties,  by  the  consent  of  all 
antiquity,  though  not  with  Dr  Priestley's  leave,  we  place 
the  mere  humanity  of  Christ,  with  or  without  the  mira- 
culous conception. 

3.  Still  Dr  Priestley  triumphs  in  tl»e  silence  of  He- 
^esippus,  and  the  concessions  of  Justin  Martyr.  It 
were  not  difficult,  to  show  the  insufficiency  of  his  Reply 
to  the  learned  reviewer  of  his  work,  upon  both  these 
articles  :  but  I  forbear  to  put  my  sickle  into  another's 
harvest.  But  that  it  may  not  be  thought  strange,  that 
these  cogent  arguments  should  have  been  suffered  to 
pass  unnoticed  in  my  own  animadversions,  and  that 
the  omission  may  not  be  imputed  to  the  wrong  cause  ; 
it  seems  proper  to  declare  the  true  reason  of  it,  which 
was  this  :  I  wished  to  confine  my  strictures  to  those  ar- 
guments, in  which  the  learned  author  seemed  to  me  the 
most  original.  In  these  two  he  is  the  least  so.  Both 
are  stale.  The  one  is  from  Zuicker's  mint ;  the  other 
from  Episcopius.  Both  have  been  canvassed  vviili  great 
accuracy,  and  both  have  been  effectually  overturned,  by 
that  excellent  Divine  whom  I  have  so  often  found  occa- 
sion to  mention,  and  who  never  must  be  mentioned  with- 
out praise,  the  learned  and  pious  Bishop  Bull. 


LETTERS 

FROM  THE 

ARCHDEACON  OF  ST  ALBAN'S. 

in 

REPLY 

TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 


LETTERS, 


LETTER   FIRST. 

The  Jlrchdeacon  of  St  Jllban's  declines  a  regular  con- 
troversy with  J)r  Priestley. — Produces  new  instan- 
ces of  Dr  Priestley's  inaccuracies  and  misrepresen- 
tations. 

DEAR  SIR, 

WHEN",  at  the  request  of  the  Clergy  of  my  arch- 
deaconry, I  published  the  discourse,  in  which  I  had 
given  them  my  thoughts  of  your  late  attack  on  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Trinity ;  it  was  not  at  all  my  intention  to 
open  a  regular  controversy  with  you  upon  the  subject. 
1  cannot  think,  that  you  have  read  my  publication  with 
so  little  discernment,  as  not  to  perceive  in  it,  a  design 
of  quite  another  kind  ;  which  yet,  1  fear,  I  shall  find 
it  difficult  to  avow  in  explicit  terms,  without  giving  an 
offence,  which,  were  it  possible,  1  would  avoid.  But 
since  you  challenge  me  to  a  contest,  in  which  it  is  my 
resolution  never  to  engage  ;  not  from  any  distrust  of  my 
own  cause,  nor  from  any  dread  of  the  abilities  by  which 


93  LETTERS  IX  REPLY'  LV.T.  I 

\  should  be  opposed ;  but  from  a  persuasion,  that  a  con- 
troversy,  in  which  so  little  new  is  to  be  said  on  either 
side,  could  not  terminate  in  the  satisfaction  of  either 
party  ;  it  is  necessary,  that  both  yourself  and  the  pub- 
lick  should  be  made  to  understand,  upon  what  grounds 
I  conceive  myself  at  liberty  to  decline  a  discussion,  to 
which  you  seem  to  think  me  pledged :  and  for  this  pur- 
pose, I  must  declare  in  very  plain  language,  what  1 
would  rather  have  left  you  to  collect ;  that  my  origi- 
nal attack  upon  your  history  was  such,  as  to  lay  me 
under  no  obligation  to  prosecute  the  argument.     My 
attack  was  not  so  much  upon  the  opinions,  which  you 
maintain,  however  I  may  hold  them  in  abhorrence,  as 
upon  the  credit  of  your  narrative  :  and  if  I  have  succeed- 
ed in   overthrowing  that,   which  the  judgment  of  the 
learned  must  decide,  I  am  not  at  all  obliged  to  go  into 
new  arguments  upon  the  main  question.     The  objec- 
tions, which  were  brought  against  you  in  my  Charge, 
all  went  to  the  proof  of  this  single  proposition. — That, 
on  which  ever  side  the  truth  may  lie  in  the  Trinitarian 
controversy — 1  have  no  doubt  on  which  it  lies  ;  but  the 
footing,  upon  which  I  put  the  dispute  with  you,  leaves 
me  at  liberty  to  suppose  the  matter  doubtful ;  with  what- 
ever metaphysical  difficulties  the  Catholick  doctrine  may 
be  encumbered — those  difficulties,  when  the  doctrine  is 
rightly  apprehended,  are  in  my  judgment  not  great,  but 
I  will  allow  you  to  say  they  are  insuperable :  whatever 
ambiguity  may  be  pretended  in  the  expressions  of  holy 
\vrit,  in  which  the  Divinity  of  the  Son  is  generally  sup- 
posed  to  be  asserted;  in  the  greater  part  of  the  texts,  I 
perceive  no  ambiguity,   but  you  may  assume,  if  you 
please,  that  not  one  of  them  renders  a  certain  meaning : 
whatever  variety  and  disagreement  is  to  be  found  iu  the 


LET.  L  TO  DK  PRIESTLEY.  93 

orthodoxy  of  different  ages — for  the  three  first  centuries 
the  opinion  of  the  church  upon  this  point  was  uniform, 
but  I  give  you  leave  to  suppose  it  as  unstable  as  the 
\vorld  of  Heraclitus:  whatever  may  be  the  intrinsick 
difficulty  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  however  defi- 
cient the  proof  of  it  from  holy  writ,  and  however  discor- 
dant the  opinions  of  different  ages ;  still  I  affirm,  and 
the  proof  of  this  was  the  whole  object  of  my  Charge,  that 
Dr  Priestley,  great  as  his  attainments  are  confessed  to 
be  in  the  profane  sciences,  is  altogether  unqualified  to 
throw  any  light  upon  a  question  of  ecclesiastical  an- 
tiquity. 

2.  If  the  instances,  which  I  have  alleged  of  misinfor- 
mation and  inaccuracy,  are  only  secondary  oversights, 
guch  as  affort  not  tho.  main  argument,   and  are  incident 
to  the  best  writers  in  undertakings  of  such  extent  as 
yours ;  the  attempt  to  depreciate  a  work  of  merit,   by 
uncandid  censure,  must  redound  to  my  own  disgrace. 
But  whoever  will  take  the  trouble  to  compare  your 
work  and  mine,  will  find,  that  with  all  the  illiberal  zeal 
\vhich  you  ascribe  to  me,  I  was  not  disposed  to  cavil 
about  trifles — 1  fear  it  will  be  rather  found,  that  I  have 
erred  in  the  opposite  extreme  ;  and,  lest  1  should  seem 
too  much  inclined  to  censure,  have  passed  over  many 
inaccuracies,  which  ought  to  have  been  pointed  out. 

3.  Such,  for  instance,  is  your  inversion  of  the  order 
of  succession  of  the  Roman  pontiffs  :  when  you  mention 
Victor  as  the  successor  of  the  bishop  who  came  after 
him.* 

4.  Such  is  your  assertion,!  that  in  the  age  of  Tertul- 


*  Hist,  of  Corrup.  TO!,  i,  p. 

t  ibid.  p.  ei. 


£4?  LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  L 

lian,  it  was  not  pretended  "  that  the  subject  of  the  Tri- 
nity was  above  human  comprehension ;"  when  but  a  few 
pages  back*  you  had  produced  a  passage  from  Irenseus, 
in  which  the  generation  of  the  Son,  which  is  a  part 
only  of  the  subject,  is  mentioned  as  so  wonderful  a 
thing,  as  to  be  understood  by  none  "  except  the  Father, 
Who  begat,  and  the  Sou,  who  is  begotten." 

5.  Such  is  your  misrepresentation  of  the  opinion  of 
Valesius,  concerning  the  cause  of  the  loss  of  Hegesip- 
pus's  history.  Valesius,  you  say, "  was  of  opinion,  that 
the  history  of  Hegisippus  was  neglected  and  lost  by  the 
ancients,  because  it  was  observed  to  favour  the  Unitari- 
rian  doctrine."!  Valesius  hath  indeed  expressed  an 
opinion,  that  the  work  of  Hegesippus  was  neglected  by 
the  ancients,  on  account  of  errors  which  it  contained  : 
but  what  the  errors  might  be,  which  might  occasion  this 
neglect,  is  a  point  upon  which  Valesius  is  silent — and 
what  right  have  you  to  suppose,  that  the  Unitarian  doc- 
trine  was  the  error  which  Valesius  ascribed  to  Hegesip- 
pus, more  than  to  Clemens  Alexandrinus,  upon  whose 
lost  work  of  the  Hypotyposes  he  passes  the  same  judg- 
ment ?  J 


*  Hist,  of  Corrup .  vol.  i.  p.  37. 
t  Ibid-  p.  9. 

*  Dr  Priestley,  in  the  nineteenth  of  his  Second  Letters,  to  extricate  himself 
from   this  question,  endeavours   to  prove,  that  the   Unitarian  doctrines  are   the 
only  errors  that  can  with  probability  be  ascribed  to  Hegesippus,  in  his  lost  work ; 
and  that  Clemens  Alexandrinus,  though   he  was  himself  no   Unitarian,  might, 
for  ought  any  one  now   knows  to  the  contrary,  have  said  things  in  favour  of 
Unitarians,    in    his   lost    work  of  the   Hypotyposes.    But   whatever  proof  Dr 
Priestley  may  be  able  to  make  out,  that  Hegesippus  was  an  Unitarian,  and  that 
Clemens  Alexaadrinus  spoke   favourably  of  Unitarians,  still  I  complain,  that  he 
alleges   the  authority  of  Valesius  for  more  than  Velesius  himself  affirms:   and 
i  maintain,  that  this  inaccuracy,  (for  I  have  called  it  in  this  instance  by  no 


LET.  I.  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY.  95 

6.  Such  another  inaccuracy,  to  use  no  harsher  word, 
is  your  appeal  to  the  testimony  of  Epiphanius,  in  favour 
of  Noetus ;  to  prove  that  he  was  wronged  by  his  adver- 
saries, when  he  was  accused  of  the  Patripassian  heresy. 
Noetus's  confession,  according  to  Epiphanius,  was  this  : 
"  that  he  acknowledged  one  God,  who  was  begotten, 
who  suffered  and  died."  But  suppressing,  or  in  your 
rapid  glances  having  not  observed,  the  latter  part  of 
this  acknowledgement,  asserting  the  sufferings  and  death 
of  his  one  God ;  you  produce  Epiphanhts  as  an  evi- 
dence, that — "  Noetus  was  simply  an  Unitarian,  decla- 
ring upon  all  occasions  with  great  boldness,  that  he 
neither  knew  nor  worshipped  any  God  but  one."*  (+) 
Having  thus  vindicated  the  injured  character  of  Noetus, 
you  proceed  to  inform  your  readers,  how  it  came  to  pass, 
that  the  Unitarians  of  that  age  fell  under  the  imputation 
of  the  Patripassian  error. 

7.  Such  another  inaccuracy  we  have,  in  your  relation 
of  the  judgment,  which  the  Roman  Dionysius  passed 
upon  certain  injudicious  antagonists  of  Sabellius  :  who, 
to  avoid  his  error,  divided  the  Holy  Trinity  into  three 
persons  unrelated  to  each  other,  and  distinct  in  all 
respects.  E<V  rf*/?  Jcrcrows;?,  £trac  ctXAwxwr.  woLvlcnratrt 
w  oty/ax  Tf;aSa.  These  are  the 


worse  name,)  in  the  allegation  of  authorities*  is  a  circumstance  that  ought  to 
lessen  his  credit  as  an  historian. 

*  Hist,  of  Corrup.  vol.  i.  p.  74. 

(+)  In  the  nineteenth  of  his  Second  Letters,  Dr  Priestley  acknowledge*  that 
he  ought  not  to  have  exempted  Epiphauiua  from  the  impropriety  of  charging 
Noetus  with  the  Patripassian  heresy.  But  he  says,  "  this  like  the  former,"  the  mis- 
quotation of  Valesius,  "  is  a  circumstance  of  little  consequence  to  the  main  argument.'* 
Dr  Priestley  forgets,  that  the  main  argument  with  him  and  with  me  goi's  tf> 
different  points.  His  point,  is  the  antiquity  and  the  truth  of  the  Unitarian  doc- 
trine.  Mine  is,  Dr  Priestley's  incompetency  in  the  subject  which  he  pretends  to 
treat. 


95  LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  t 

words,  in  which  Athanasius  states  the  opinion,  which 
Dionysius  censures;  and  the  censure  of  Dionysius  upon 
this  opinion,  Athanasius  quotes  with  approbation,  as  well 
indeed  he  might,  for  the  opinion  of  three  persons  in  the 
Godhead,  tmrelated  to  each  other,  and  distinct  in  all 
respects,  is  rank  Tritheism  ;  because,  what  are  unrela- 
ted and  distinct  in  all  respects,  are  many  in  all  respects ; 
and  being  many  in  all  respects,  cannot  in  any  respect  be 
one.  But  in  your  translation  of  the  passage,  by  omit- 
ting the  very  significant  adjective  £em?,  and  the  very 
emphatical  adverb  na.v\ct.7r*<ji,  you  leave  hardly  any  dif- 
ference between  the  opinion  which  Dionysius  censured, 
and  the  Catholick  faith,  which  Athanasius  maintained : 
and  thus  you  procure  yourself  a  fine  opportunity  of  in- 
troducing an  oblique  sarcastick  stroke  at  Athanasius, 
for  concurring  in  a  censure  .upon  his  own  opinions. 
"  Some  persons,  in  opposing  Sabellius,  having  made 
three  hypostases,  which  we  render  persons,  separate  from 
each  other  ;  Dionysius,  bishop  of  Rome,  quoted  with  ap- 
probation by  Athanasius  himself,  said,  that  it  was  ma- 
king  three  Gods.??*  Surely,  truth,  candour,  and  consis- 
tency, are  conspicuous  in  the  writings  of  our  modern 
Unitarians ;  and  the  Archdeacon  of  St  Alban's  is  the 
only  writer  of  the  age,  who  deals  in  sarcasms ! 

8.  These,  and  other  inaccuracies,  which  might  have 
been  remarked*  without  any  impeachment  of  my  can- 
dour, and  with  advantage  to  my  argument,  I  suffered  to 
pass  unnoticed.  I  chose  to  rest  the  strength  of  my  at- 
tack, rather  on  the  importance,  than  the  variety,  of  the 
matter  of  complaint.  If  the  instances  of  mistake,  which 


•  Hht  of  Corrup.  vol.  i.  p. 


LET.  I.  TO  DU  PRIESTLEY.  ^y 

I  have  alleged,  be  few  in  number,  yet  if  they  are  singly 
too  considerable  in  size,  to  be  incident  to  a  well  inform- 
ed writer ;  if  they  betray  a  want  of  that  general  compre- 
hension of  your  subject,  which  might  enable  you  to  draw 
the  true  conclusions  from  the  passages  you  cite  ;  if  they 
prove  you  incompetent  in  the  very  language  of  the  wri- 
ters, from  which  your  proofs  should  be  drawn;  unskilled 
in  the  philosophy,  whose  doctrines  you  pretend  to  com- 
pare with  the  opinions  of  the  churcli ;  a  few  clear  in- 
stances, of  errors  of  this  enormous  size,  may  release  me 
from  the  task  which  you  would  impose  upon  me,  of 
canvassing  every  part  of  your  argument,  and  of  replying 
to  every  particular  quotation.  A  writer,  of  whom  it  is 
once  proved  that  he  is  ill-informed  upon  his  subject,  hath 
no  right  to  demand  a  further  hearing.  It  is  a  fair  pre- 
sumption against  the  truth  of  his  conclusion,  be  it  what 
it  may,  that  it  cannot  be  right,  but  by  mere  accident. 
To  be  right  by  accident,  will  rarely  happen  to  any  mail 
in  any  subject ;  because  in  all  subjects  truth  is  single, 
and  error  infinite. 

9.  Not  long  since,  1  was  consulted  about  a  new 
opinion  concerning  the  actual  figure  of  the  earth.  I  ob- 
jected, that  while  the  basis  of  the  author's  argument  was 
an  assumption,  that  the  figure  of  the  meridian  is  an  ellip- 
sis ;  in  his  inquiry  after  the  particular  species  of  the 
ellipsis,  he  had  assigned  properties  to  the  curve  of  the 
earth's  meridian,  which  the  known  nature  of  the  ellipsis 
would  not  admit.  I  was  challenged  to  prove  a  certain 
relation,  which  I  asserted,  between  the  rays  of  curva- 
ture in  different  parts  of  the  curve — to  prove  the  curva- 
ture at  the  second,  less  than  at  the  principal  vertex — and 
at  last  I  was  challenged,  to  prove  the  property  from 
which  the  ellipsis  takes  ita  name.  Was  I  to  blame, 

13 


08  LETTERS  IX  RfcPLrt  LET.  I 

that  I  broke  off  the  conference — that  I  refuse  to  con- 
template another  scheme,  or  to  examine  another  com- 
putation  ? 

10.  Pardon  me,  Sir,  if  plain  dealing  compels  me  to 
profess,  that  I  think  little  less  respectfully  of  this  philo- 
sopher's learning  in  the  coriicks,  than  of  your  attain- 
ments in  ecclesiastical  history.  I  make  this  avowal 
with  the  less  hesitation,  because  I  find  my  opinion  in  some 
measure  j  ustified  by  your  own  confessions.  You  con- 
fess, that  my  late  publication  first  brought  you  acquaint- 
ed with  the  very  name  of  Daniel  Zuicker :  that  from  me 
you  have  received  your  first  information  of  the  conces- 
sions of  Episcopius ;  and  the  first  notice  of  the  coinci- 
dence of  your  own  opinions,  concerning  the  Platonizing 
fathers  of  the  second  century,  with  those  of  Petavius 
and  Huetius  :  that  you  had  never  in  your  life  looked 
through  the  writings  of  Bishop  Bull,  till  my  frequent 
references  to  them  excited  your  curiosity  ;  as  they  gave 
you  to  understand,  what  before  you  had  never  known, 
that  the  author  is  in  high  esteem  with  the  clergy  of  the 
establishment.  What  is  this  but  to  confess,  that  you  are 
indeed  little  read  in  the  principal  writers,  either  on  your 
own  side  of  the  question  or  the  opposite  ?  But  as  no  man, 
I  presume,  is  born  with  an  intuitive  knowledge  of  the 
opinions  or  the  facts  of  past  ages,  the  historian  of  Reli- 
gious Corruptions,  confessing  himself  unread  in  the 
polemical  divines,  confesses  ignorance  of  his  subject. 
The  opinion  therefore  which  I  formed,  upon  a  diligent 
perusal  of  your  work,  is  confirmed  by  your  own  ac- 
knowledgments ;  and  my  victory  is  already  so  complete, 
that  I  might  well  decline  any  further  contest. 

11.  My  alarms  (if  I  ever  felt  alarm)  for  the  Catholick 
faith,  or  for  the  national  establishment,  as  in  danger 


LET.  I.  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY.  gg 

from  your  attacks,  must  now  be  laid  asleep  ;  and  will 
be  no  incentive  to  any  very  vigorous  exertions  against 
a  prostrate  enemy.*  But  the  truth  is,  that  I  never  was 
alarmed,  and  it  is  necessary  that  I  should  set  you  right 
in  that  point.  When  1  spake  of  your  extraordinary  at- 
tempt, to  unsettle  faith,  and  to  break  up  establishments,! 
I  spake  of  the  end  to  which  your  wishes  seem  to  be  car- 
ried, not  of  an  event  which  I  thought  likely  to  ensue. 
The  utmost  danger  that  I  feared,  was  of  an  inferior 
kind :  a  present  danger,  not  to  the  church,  but  to  the 
more  unwary  of  her  members,  who  might  be  misled  by 
the  justly  celebrated  name  of  Dr  Priestley  :  a  future 
danger  to  myself,  if  I  forbore  to  bear  my  witness  to  the 
truth.  For  although  we  have  a  promise,  that  the  gates 
of  hell  shall  not  prevail  against  the  church,  yet  the  vi- 
gilence  of  the  priesthood,  I  conceive  to  be  the  ordi- 
nary means,  which  God  hath  provided  for  its  secu- 
rity. I  therefore  thought  it  my  duty,  to  prevent  the 
mischief  which  might  arise  to  the  unlearned  and  unsta- 
ble, by  demolishing  the  credit  of  your  narrative,  and  in 
these  subjects,  the  authority  of  your  name. 

12.  The  letters  which  you  have  lately  addressed  to 
me,  give  me  no  reason  to  alter  my  opinion  or  retract  my 
accusation.  They  only  fix  me  in  the  persuasion,  that 
to  prosecute  the  dispute  with  you,  would  be  to  little  pur- 
pose. You  will  therefore  excuse  me,  if  I  declin*1  a 
controversy,  to  be  carried  on,  for  such  I  understand  to 
be  the  conditions  of  the  challenge,  "  till  you  shall  have 


*  — "you  seem  to  have  taken  a  particular  alarm— T  hoj>p  you  will  exert 

yourself  wirh  proportionable  vigour— —to  save  a  falling  state."  Letters  to  Dr 
Horsley,  p.  2. 

j-  Charge,  sec.  3. 


LETTEUS  IN  REPLY  LET.  /. 

nothing  left,  which  you  may  think  of  consequence  to 
allege."*  When  I  have  shown  the  insufficiency  of 
the  defence  which  you  have  now  set  up,  and  have  col- 
lected the  new  specimens  of  your  historical  abilities, 
which  this  new  publication  supplies  in  great  abundance, 
whatever  more  you  may  find  to  say  upon  the  subject,  in 
me  you  will  have  no  antagonist. 

I  am  &c. 


*  Preface  to  Letters,  p.  Ui.  and  XTIU, 


,ET.  Tf.  TO  Dll  I'UIESTLUY. 


LETTER  SECOND. 

Jl  recapitulation  of  the  Archdeacon's  Charge. 

DEAR  SIR, 

IF  I  could  adopt  your  heroick  plan,  of  writing  on 
till  I  should  have  nothing  left  to  say,  our  correspond- 
ence would  run  to  an  enormous  size  :  for  I  should  have 
more  than  a  single  remark  to  make,  upon  almost  every 
sentence  of  every  one  of  your  Ten  Letters.     But  as  we 
both  write  for  the  edification  of  the  publick,  and  yet 
few,  T  fear,  will  be  disposed  to  give  a  long  or  a  close 
attention  to  our  subject,  the  ease  of  our  readers,  if  we 
mean  to  be  read,  must  be  consulted.     You,  1  am  told, 
in  defiance  of  your  bookseller's  sage  counsels,  despise 
such  considerations  ;  but  they  will  have  their  weight 
with  me  :  I  shall  be  unwilling,  either  to  fatigue  by  the 
length,  or  to  perplex  by  the  intricacy  or  obscurity  of  my 
reasoning.     To  avoid  the  first  miscarriage,  I  shall  be 
content  to  give  you  a  sufficient,  rather  than  a  full  reply ; 
and  to  avoid  the  second,  I  shall  endeavour  so  to  frame 
my  argument,  that  my  readers  may  perceive  the  force  of 
it,  without  the  trouble  and  interruption,  of  frequent  re- 
course to  our  former  publications.     For  this  purpose,  I 
shall  begin  with  a  recapitulation  of  the  substance  of  my 
Charge  ;  that,  before  I  enter  upon  particular  discussions, 
the  points  to  be  disputed  may  be  brought  at  once  in 
view. 

2.  The  general  argument  of  my  charge,  was  a  critical 
review  of  your  History,  in  that  part  of  it  which  relates 


10»>  l.r.iTKKS  IX  in-, PLY  LET.  Jf 

to  tlie  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  in  the  three  first  ages. 
This  review  consisted  of  two  parts  :  a  summary  of  the 
account,  which  you  pretend  to  give,  of  the  rise  and  pro- 
gress  of  the  Trinitarian  doctrine  ;  and  a  view  of  the  evi- 
dence, by  which  your  narrative  is  supported,  consisting 
of  nine  select  specimens,  of  the  particular  proofs  of  which 
the  body  of  that  evidence  is  composed. 

3.  Of  your  account  of  the  rise  and  progress  of  the 
Trinitarian  doctrine,  I  said  in  general,  that  it  is  nothing 
new ;  that  it  is  in  all  its  essential  parts,  the  same  which 
was  propagated  by  the  Unitarian  writers  of  the  last  cen- 
tury, and,  upon  its  first  appearance,  refuted  by  divines 
of  the  church  of  England.     Your  answer  to  this  part  of 
my  Charge,  is,  as  I  have  already  had  occasion  to  ob- 
serve, complete.     You  repel  the  imputation  of  plagia- 
rism, by  the  most  disgraceful  confession  of  ignorance,  to 
which  foiled  polemick  ever  was  reduced.     To  this  part 
of  your  defence  1  have  nothing  to  reply. 

4.  To  your  evidence,  I  made  the  same  general  objec- 
tion, that  it  is  destitute  of  novelty  ;  consisting  of  proofs 
long  since  set  up,  and  long  since  confuted  :  that  if  you 
have  attempted  any  thing  new,  it  is  only  to  confirm  the 
gratuitous  assumptions  of  former  Unitarians,  by  incon- 
clusive arguments,  and  false  quotations.     The  nine  spe- 
cimens of  your  proofs,  by  which  this  heavy  accusation 
was  supported,  were  nothing  less,  than  your  principal 
arguments,  in  support  of  your  three  fundamental  asser- 
tions :  that  the  primitive  church  was  simply  Unitarian  ; 
that  our  Lord's  divinity  was  an  innovation  of  the  second 
century;  and  that  the  innovation   was   made  by  the 
Platonizing  Fathers.     If  your  principal  argu  ments  were 
fairly  adduced,  as  instances  of  weak,  insufficient  proof, 
your  whole  notion  of  the  gradual  progress  of  opinions, 


LET.  11,  TO  DU  PRIESTLEY 

from  the  Unitarian  doctrine  to  the  Arian,  and  from  the 
Arian  to  the  Nicene  faith,  is  overthrown.  Of  this  you 
have  shown  yourself  not  insensible,  by  the  great  pains 
which  you  have  taken,  to  what  purpose  will  soon  ap- 
pear, to  answer  my  objections. 

5.  The  nine   specimens  of  insufficient  proof  were 
these. 

6.  Two  instances  of  the  circulating  syllogism.     The 
first,  when  you  allege  your  own  sense  of  Scripture  as 
the  clear  sense,  in  proof  of  your  pretended  fact,  that  the 
primitive  faith  was  Unitarian  ;  whereas  the  fact  must 
be    first  proved,    before  your  particular   interpretation 
can  be  admitted.     The  second  when,  in  like  manner, 
you  allege  the  pretended  silence  of  St  John  about  the 
error  of  the  Unitarians  ;  in  proof,  that  the  Unitarian 
doctrine  is  no  error,  but  the  very  truth  of  the  gospel. 
The  assumption,  that  St.  John  is  silent  upon  this  sub- 
ject in  his  first  epistle,  is  gratuitous  and  disputable.     It 
rests  upon  a  particular  interpretation  of  St  John's  ex- 
pression, that  "  Christ  is  come  in  the  flesh,"  which  will 
be  admitted  by  none,  who  are  not  previously  convinced 
that  St  John's  own  faith  was  Unitarian.     If  St  John's 
faith  was   Unitarian,  the  phrase  that  "  Christ  is  come 
in  the   flesh,"  signifies  only,   that  Christ  was  a  man  ; 
and  thus,   we  shall  find   no  censure  of  the  Unitarian 
doctrine   in   St  John's   first  epistle.     But  if  St  John 
was  no  Unitarian,  but  a  believer  in  the  incarnation 
and  divinity  of  our  Lord  ;  then,  the  phrase  of  Christ's 
coming  in  the  flesh,  cannot  but  be  understood  to  allude 
to  both  these  articles,  as  parts  of  the  true  faith  ;  and,  al- 
luding to  both  these  articles  as  parts  of  the  true  faith,  it 
conveys  a  censure  upon  the  Unitarian  doctrine  in  every 
form.     The  assumption  therefore^  of  St  John's  silence 


LETTERS  IN  UKl'Ll  LET.  Jl 

concerning  the  Unitarian  doctrine,  presumes  another 
fact,  that  St John  was  himself  an  Unitarian.  This  is  the 
primary,  though  tacit  assumption,  on  which  this  argu- 
ment is  built.  This  argument  therefore,  fairly  analyzed, 
is  found  to  circulate  like  the  former :  for  the  conclu- 
sion to  be  established,  is  the  pretended  fact,  that  the 
faith  of  the  primitive  church  was  Unitarian — the  mean 
of  proof  is  the  gratuitous  assumption,  that  the  faith  of 
St  John  was  Unitarian.  But  to  assume  the  faith  of  an 
inspired  apostle,  is  the  same  thing  as  to  assume  the  faith 
of  the  primitive  church. 

7.  My  third  specimen,  was  an  instance,  in  which  you 
cite  a  testimony  which  no  where  exists.     The  pretended 
testimony  is  of  no  less  a  person  than  Athanasius.     The 
fact,  to  which  Athanasius  is  made  to  depose,  is  the  high 
antiquity  of  the  Unitarian  faith.     His  testimony  to  this 
fact,  you  find  in  his  piece  upon  the  orthodoxy  of  the 
Alexandrine  Dionysius  ;  in  a  certain  passage  in  which 
he  affirms,  that  the  Jews  were  firmly  persuaded  that  the 
Messiah  was  to  be  a  mere  man  ;  and  alleges,   as  you 
understand  him,  this  persuasion  of  the  Jews,   as   an 
apology  for  a  caution  used  by  the  apostles,  in  divulging 
the  doctrine  of  our  Lord's  divinity.     The  Jews  of  whom 
Athanasius  speaks,  you  preposterously   imagine  were 
Christians,  the  first  converts  from  Judaism.     Whereas, 
he  speaks  of  plain  downright  Jews;  and  what  you  take 
for  his  apology  for  caution  in  the  apostles,  is  in  truth  a 
commendation  of  the  sagacity  which  they  displayed,  in 
a  judicious  arrangement  of  the  matter  of  their  doctrine. 

8.  My  fourth  specimen,  was  your  capital  argument 
for  the  antiquity  of  the  Unitarian  faith,  founded  on  the 
opinions  of  the  Nazarenes :  this  argument,  I  maintain 
to  be  lame  and  impotent  in  every  part.    It  is  built  upon 


Ll'T.  It  TO  UR  PRIESTLEY. 

two  assumptions,  of  which  the  one  is  a  mere  gratuitous 
assertion,  of  which  no  proof  is  attempted  ;  the  other  is 
accompanied  with  a  pretended  proof,  which  arises  how- 
ever, from  a  forged  testimony,  and  an  ill-founded  asser- 
tion.    The  gratuitous  assumption  is,  that  the  Nazarenea 
and  the  Hebrew   Christians,  were  the  same  people ; 
whereas  the  fact  is,  that  the  sect  of  the  Nazarenes,  arose 
after  the  extinction  of  the  proper  church  of  Jerusalem. 
The  other  assumption  is,  that  the  faith  of  these  Naza- 
renes was  Unitarian.     This  is  proved  by  the  testimony 
of  Epiphanius,  and  by  an  assumption,  that  the  Naza- 
renes and  the  Ehionites  were  the  same.     This  assertion 
is  unfounded,  and  the  testimony  of  Epiphanius  is  in  fact 
forged ;  since  it  is  drawn  by  torture  from  his  words.     In- 
deed, it  is  not  pretended  to  be  more  than  this ;  that 
Epiphanius  makes  no  mention  "  that  the  Nazarenes  be- 
lieved  in  the  divinity  of  Christ;"  and  this  no-mention  is 
only  his  confession,   that  he  was  totally  uninformed, 
whether  they  believed  the  divinity  of  Christ,  or  not. 
Were  both  these  assumptions  true,  the  argument  would 
be  complete.    Both  are  false  :  and  were  either  singly 
true,  yet  the  other  being  false,  the  conclusion  would  be 
either  the  reverse  of  your's,  or  altogether  precarious. 

9.  My  fifth  specimen,  was  your  misrepresentation  of 
Eusebius,  whom  you  charge  with  inconsistency,  because 
another  writer  who  is  quoted  by  him,  speaks  of  Theodo- 
tus,  who  appeared  about  the  year  190,  as  the  first  who 
held  that  our  Saviour  was  a  mere  man  ;  when,  in  refu- 
ting the  pretentious  of  the  Unitarians  to  antiquity,  he 
goes  no  further  back  than  to  Irenseus  and  Justin  Mar- 
tyr  ;  although  the  writings  of  Eusebius  himself  afford  a 
refutation  of  the  assertion.  But  although  the  assertion, 
as  you  choose  to  understand  it,  would  be  liable  to  refu- 

14 


406  LETTERS  IN  JlEPLY  LET.  II 

tation  from  the  writings  of  Eusebius  ;  it  admits  an  inter- 
pretation, by  which  the  seeming  inconsistency  is  entirely 
removed.  The  pretentious  to  antiquity,  which  it  was  in- 
cumbent upon  Eusebius,  or  the  author  quoted  by  him,  to 
refute,  were  not  simply  pretensions  to  antiquity,  but  to 
a  prior  antiquity :  and  in  refuting  these,  the  author 
quoted  by  Eusebius,  goes  back  to  the  apostolick  age. 

10.  Your  objection  to   the   doctrine  of  the  church, 
drawn  from  the  resemblance  which  you  find  between 
the  Christian  and  the  Flatonick  doctrine,  furnished  my 
sixth  specimen  of  insufficient  proof.     I  acknowledge  the 
resemblance;   but  1  insist,  that  it  leads  to  an  inqui- 
ry  into  the   sentiments   of  heathen  antiquity,   which, 
pursued  to  its  just  consequences,  rather  corroborates 
than  invalidates,  the  traditional  evidence  of  the  Catho- 
lick  faith. 

11.  Your  proofs   of  your  second  assertion,  that  the 
doctrine  of  our  Lord's  divinity  was  an  innovation  of  the 
second  age,  are  all  of  an  oblique  and  secondary  kind  : 
such  as,  were  they  liable  to  no  other  objection,  would 
lead  to  no  conclusion,  without  a  distinct  previous  proof, 
that  the  faith  of  the  first  age  was  Unitarian.     One  of 
these  arguments  furnished  my  seventh  specimen  of  in- 
sufficient  proof:  it  is  an  instance,  in  which  you  cite  the 
testimony  of  a  Greek  writer,  to  prove  the  very  reverse 
of  what  he  says — it  is  alleged  by  me  as  an  instance  of 
your  competency  in  the  Greek  language  in  general;  and 
of  your  particular  acquaintance  with  the  phraseology  of 
the  early  fathers. 

IS.  My  eighth  specimen,  was  taken  from  your  at- 
tempt to  translate  a  passage  of  Athenagoras,  at  which 
an  abler  philologer  than  you  have  shown  yourself  to  be, 
unread  in  the  Platonists,  might  be  allowed  to  stumble. 


LET.  II.  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY.  107 

I  produced  it,  to  convict  you  of  incompetency  in  the 
language  of  the  Platonists ;  and  to  confirm  a  suspicion, 
which  the  very  tenor  of  your  third  assertion  might  cre- 
ate, that  you  are  ignorant  of  the  genuine  doctrines  of 
the  Platonick  school.  Whence  it  is  to  be  inferred,  that 
you  are  little  to  be  trusted,  when  you  take  upon  you  to 
compare  the  opinions  of  the  first  Christians,  in  which 
you  are  not  learned,  with  Platonism,  in  which  you  are 
a  child. 

13.  My  ninth  specimen  was  another  instance  of  your 
skill  in  the  Greek  language.  A  passage  of  Theophilus, 
in  which  he  expounds  the  word  Trinity,  by  Father, 
Son,  and  Holy  Ghost,  is  produced  by  you  to  prove, 
that  the  use  of  the  word  Trinity,  to  denote  Father,  Son, 
and  Holy  Ghost,  was  unknown  to  Theophilus.  Theo- 
philus's  words  are  so  very  clear,  that  the  sense  was 
hardly  to  be  missed,  at  first  sight,  by  a  school  boy  in  his 
second  year  of  Greek. 

14*.  These  are  the  nine  specimens,  by  which  I  sup^ 
port  my  general  Charge  of  the  inaccuracy  of  your  nar- 
rative ;  and  in  these  subjects,  the  insufficiency  of  its 
author.  To  all  of  them,  except  the  seventh  and  ninth, 
you  have  attempted  to  reply.  "With  what  success  is  to 
be  considered. 

I  am,  &r. 


408  LETTERS  IK  REPLY  LET.  ///. 


1ETTER  THIRD. 

In  Reply  to  Dr  Priestley's  introductory,  and  to  part  of 
his  first  Letter. — His  defence  of  his  argument  from 
the  clear  sense  of  Scripture,  confuted. — Of  the  argu- 
ment against  our  Lord's  preexistence,  to  be  drawn 
from  the  materiality  of  man. — Of  the  Greek  pronoun 

VTtff. 

DEAR  SIR, 

TO  remove  the  imputation  of  having  argued  in  a 
circle,  when  alleging  your  own  sense  of  Scripture  as  the 
clear  sense,  you  infer,  that  the  faith  of  the  first  ages  was 
exactly  conformable  to  your  own  opinions  ;  you  tell  me, 
that  the  clear  sense  of  Scripture,  and  the  historical  evi- 
dence, are  collateral  proofs*  of  the  early  prevalence  of 
the  Unitarian  faith — 1  shall  admit  this,  and  shall  retract 
all  that  1  have  written,  when  once  you  shall  have  proved 
to  the  satisfaction  of  the  Christian  world,  that  the  Uni- 
tarian doctrine  is  delivered  in  the  holy  Scriptures,  taken 
in  their  plain  and  obvious  meaning.  But  while  your 
sense  of  Scripture  is  disallowed  by  the  majority  of 
Christians,  1  must  still  contend,  that  you  have  no  right 
to  call  it  the  clear  sense ;  and  that  any  argument  built 
on  a  supposition,  that  the  Scriptures  speak  a  sense  not 
generally  perceived  in  them,  rests  at  best  upon  a  gratui- 


*  letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  4-4. 


LET.  Ill  TO  Dtt  rRIESTLEY.  i()Q 

tous  assumption.  1  confess,  that  an  argument  drawn 
from  a  gratuitous  assumption,  is  not  necessarily  an  ar- 
gument running  in  a  circle,  unless  the  only  means  of 
reducing  the  assumption  to  a  certainty,  be  a  previous 
proof  of  the  conclusion  to  be  drawn  :  but  this,  I  affirm 
to  be  the  case  in  the  instance  under  consideration.  When 
we  speak  of  the  clear  sense  of  any  piece  of  writing,  this 
Very  expression  admits  a  twofold  interpretation.  The 
clear  sense,  may  be  either  that  which  is  clearly  conveyed 
in  the  words  ;  or  a  sense,  which  though  it  be  not  clearly 
conveyed  in  the  words,  may  be  clearly  proved,  from  the 
context,  or  from  other  considerations,  to  be  the  sense 
which  was  really  present  to  the  mind  of  the  writer.  If 
you  allege  the  clear  sense  of  the  Scriptures,  in  the  first 
sense  of  the  expression,  in  proof  that  the  primitive  faith 
was  Unitarian;  1  ask,  whether  it  be  not  the  sole  end 
and  purpose  of  the  inquiry  into  the  primitive  faith,  to 
settle  the  differences  of  Christians  upon  points,  in  which 
the  Scriptures,  if  there  be  any  ground  in  them  for  the 
disputes  which  have  arisen,  are  not  clear  ?  You  now  as. 
sume  a  sense,  which  you  call  their  clear  sense,  upon 
those  very  points,  in  order  to  ascertain  the  primitive 
faith.  This  is  to  reason  in  a  circle. 

2.  But  in  truth,  the  Unitarian  doctrine  will  never  be 
proved  to  be  the  clear  sense  of  Scripture,  in  the  first 
sense  of  clearness.  On  the  contrary,  if  ever  it  should 
be  clearly  proved  to  have  been  the  sense  of  the  sacred 
writers;  the  just  conclusion  will  be,  that  of  all  writers, 
these  have  been  the  most  unnecessarily,  and  the  most 
wilfully  obscure.  The  Unitarians  themselves,  pretend 
not  that  their  doctrine  is  to  be  found  in  the  plain  literal 
sense  of  holy  writ ;  on  the  contrary,  they  take  the  great- 
est pains  to  explain  away  the  literal  meaning.  They 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET. 


pretend,  that  the  sacred  writers  delight  in  certain  me- 
taphors  and  images,  which,  however  unnatural  and  ob- 
gcure  they  may  seem  at  this  day,  are  supposed  to  have 
been  of  the  genius  of  the  eastern  languages,  and  of  con- 
sequence, familiar  to  the  first  Christians  ;  who,  in  the 
greater  part,  were  of  Jewish  extraction.  By  the  help  of 
these  supposed  metaphors,  the  Unitarian  expositors  con- 
trive, to  purge  the  Scripture  of  every  thing  which  they 
disapprove,  and  make  it  the  oracle,  not  of  God's  wisdom,, 
but  of  their  own  fancies.  When  you  therefore,  as  a 
Unitarian,  say,  that  your  doctrine  is  the  clear  sense  of 
Scripture  ;  which,  according  to  the  scheme  of  interpreta- 
tion which  you  follow,  hath  no  clear  sense  at  all  ;  you 
can  only  mean,  that  this  doctrine  may  be  clearly  proved 
to  be  the  sense  intended  by  the  inspired  writers.  Per- 
haps, in  my  Charge,  I  was  too  negligent  in  the  interpre- 
tation of  your  expressions,  when  I  pretended  to  expose 
the  infirmity  of  your  argument.  Be  it  so.  This  then  is 
your  assertion.  The  Unitarian  doctrine  is  clearly  the 
true  sense  of  Scripture.  But  where  is  the  proof?  You 
can  bring  no  proof  that  will  be  generally  convincing, 
unless  you  can  find  it  in  the  faith  of  the  apostolick  ages. 
The  faith  of  the  first  Christians,  once  clearly  ascertain- 
ed, must  be  allowed  indeed  to  be  an  unerring  exposition 
of  the  written  word.  To  prove  therefore,  that  the  Uni- 
tarian doctrine  is  clearly  the  true  sense  of  Scripture, 
which  is  your  assumption,  you  must  first  prove  that  the 
primitive  faith  was  Unitarian,  which  should  be  your 
conclusion.  Still  this  argument  circulates,  and  was 
not  improperly  alleged  by  me,  as  my  first  specimen  of 
insufficient  proof." 

3.  But  it  is  of  no  great  importance  to  dispute,  where 
the  particular  infirmity  of  this  argument  may  lie  ;  wheu 


LET.  IJL  LETTERS  IN  REPLY 

you  confess,  that  it  is  of  such  a  sort,  "  that  you  could  not 
suppose  it  would  have  any  weight  with  Trinitarians."* 
While  you  condescend  to  employ  your  rare  abilities,  in 
framing  arguments,  which  will  persuade  those  only 
who  are  previously  persuaded,  you  will  do  little  harm. 
Why  should  I  disturb  you  in  this  innocent  amuse- 
ment? 

4.  To  compensate  for  the  confessed  inefficacy  of  this 
argument,  you  tell  me  of  another,  which  you  might  have 
urged,  to  disprove  not  only  the  divinity,   but  the  preex- 
istence  of  our  Lord ;  such  an  argument,  it  seems,  might 
have  been  drawn  "  from  the  doctrine  of  the  materiality 
of  man,  which  has  been  sufficiently  proved  in  your  dis- 
quisitions on  matter  and  spirit ;"f  in  which,  by  an  ana- 
logical proof,  you  have  refuted  the  vulgar  error  of  the 
immateriality  of  the  human  soul,  and  have  in  conse- 
quence, overthrown  the  whole  system  of  preexistence. 
I  believe.  Sir,  the  opponents  of  the  Unitarian  scheme, 
will  not  be  displeased  to  understand,  that  it  is  at  last, 
to  stand  or  fall  with  Dr  Priestley's  System  of  Materi- 
alism, and  Dr  Hartley's  Theory  of  the  Mind. 

5.  As  a  striking  instance  of  the  conformity,  between 
the  Unitarian  doctrine  and  the  clear  sense  of  Scripture, 
I  produced  the  initial  sentences  of  St  John's  gospel ; 
in  which,  you  know,  you  find  a  clear  refutation  of  the 
personality  of  the  Logos  :  in  rendering  these  sentences 
iu  English,  I  took  occasion  to  remark,  that  the  Greek 
pronoun  vrot  naturally  renders  a  person.     You  tell  me, 
"  it  may  refer  to  any  thing  that  is  of  the  same  gender,  in 


*  Letters  to  DC  Horaley,  p.  5. 
t  Ibid. 


TO  DR  PRIESTLEY.  LLT.  UL 

the  Greek  language,  whether  it  be  a  person  or  not."* 
I  never  meant  to  insinuate  the  contrary.  Give  me  leave 
to  refer  you  to  a  letter  which  was  published  in  the  Gen- 
tleman's Magazine,  for  November  last,  under  the  signa- 
ture of  PERHAPS  :  you  will  find  it  in  my  Appendix,! 
and  I  now  declare  myself  the  writer  of  it. 

I  am,  &c. 


*  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  7. 
f  Appendix,  No.  1.  and  2. 


LET.  IV.  TO  DH  PRIESTLEY, 


LETTER  FOURTH. 

In  reply  to  Dr  Priestley's  first  Letter. — His  defence 
of  his  argument,  from  St  John's  first  epistle,  confu- 
ted.— The  phrase  "come  in  the  fie sh,"  more  than 
equivalent  to  the  word  "to  come." — St  John's  asser- 
tion, that  i(  Christ  came  in  the  fiesh,"  not  paralled 
u'ith  St  PanVs,  that  "  he  partook  of  fiesh  and  blood." 

DEAR  SIR. 

YOUR  argument  for  the  antiquity  of  the  Unitarian 
doctrine,  from  St  John's  first  epistle,  the  second  among 
my  specimens  of  insufficient  proofs,  rests  on  a  supposi- 
tion, that  in  that  epistle,  the  Unitarian  doctrine  is  not 
censured.  I  have  shown,*  that  this  supposition  will 
stand  or  fall,  according  as  one  or  another  interpretation 
of  the  phrase  of  "  coming  in  the  flesh,"  shall  be  admit* 
ted.  That  single  expression,  as  it  is  generally  under- 
stood, reprobates  the  Unitarian  doctrine,  and  overthrows 
your  supposition.  You  must  therefore  establish  your 
own  sense  of  the  phrase,  before  you  can  be  permitted 
to  assume,  that  St  John  is  silent  about  the  Unitarian 
doctrine.  Now  to  make  good  this  argument,  you  tell 
me,  that  "  you  think,"  and  that  "  it  is  your  opinion," 
that  the  phrase  of  "  coming  in  the  flesh,"  is  merely  an 


*  Charge,  anil  Letter  ii. 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  IV 

assertion  of  our  Lord's  humanity.*  Sir,  I  understood 
from  the  first,  that  this  is  your  opinion,  and  I  doubt  not 
in  the  least  your  firmness  in  it :  but  I  contend,  that  no 
such  authority  belongs  to  your  opinion,  that  the  bare 
notification  of  it,  should  command  the  assent  of  the 
whole  Christian  world,  in  preference  to  other  opinions, 
which  have  more  generally  prevailed.  You  must  jus- 
tify that  opinion,  if  you  would  give  any  colonr  of  plau- 
sibility to  your  argument ;  but  the  opinion  cannot  be 
justified,  unless  it  might  be  previously  assumed,  that  St 
John  himself  was  an  Unitarian.  You  will  hardly  say, 
that  any  believer  in  our  Lord's  divinity  and  incarna- 
tion, could  employ  the  phrase  of  Christ's  "  coming  in 
the  flesh,"  without  an  allusion,  in  his  own  mind,  to  both 
those  articles,  as  branches  of  the  true  faith.  But  such 
an  allusion,  implies  a  censure  of  the  Unitarians.  Till 
you  shall  have  proved,  therefore,  that  St  John  was  an 
Unitarian,  the  phrase  of  "  Christ's  coming  in  the  flesh" 
may  be  thought  to  contain  a  censure  of  the  Unitarian 
tenets  5  and  your  opinion,  that  no  censure  of  them  is 
contained  in  St  John's  first  epistle,  will  be  disputable. 

%.  You  say,  that  this  phrase  of  coming  in  the  flesh, 
"  refers  naturally  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Gnosticks."* 
I  say  the  very  same  thing.  But  I  say,  that  in  the 
sense  in  which  the  church  hath  ever  understood  it,  this 
phrase  refers  to  two  divisions  of  the  Gnosticks :  the 
Docetse,  and  the  Cerinthians  ;  affirming  a  doctrine,  which 
is  the  mean  between  their  opposite  errors.  The  Do- 
cetae  affirmed,  that  Jesus  was  not  a  man  in  reality,  but 
in  appearance  only ;  the  Cerinthians,  that  he  was  a 


*  Letters  to  Dr  Horsky,  p.  8,  10. 
t  Ibtf,  p.  9. 


LET.  IV.  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 

mere  man,  under  the  tutelage  of  the  Christ,  a  superan- 
gelick  being,  which  was  not  so  united  to  the  man  as  to 
make  one  person.  St  John  says,  « Jesus  Christ  is 
come  in  the  flesh ;"  that  is,  as  the  words  have  been 
generally  understood,  Jesus  was  a  man,  not  in  appear- 
ance only,  as  the  Docetse  taught,  but  in  reality ;  not  a 
mere  man,  as  the  Cerinthians  taught,  under  the  care 
of  a  superangelick  guardian,  but  Christ  himself  come 
in  the  flesh  ;  the  word  of  God  incarnate.  St  John  says, 
that  whoever  denies  this  complex  proposition,  is  of  anti- 
christ. It  surprises  me,  that  you  should  find  an  impro- 
bability, upon  the  first  face  of  the  thing,  in  supposing, 
that  the  same  expression  should  be  equally  levelled* 
at  two  heresies,  which  you  confess  to  be  opposite.  For 
is  it  not  always  the  case,  that  expressions  which  predi- 
cate a  truth,  lying  in  the  middle  between  two  opposite 
falsehoods,  equally  impugn  both  the  false  extremes? 
If  I  say,  that  when  Fahrenheit's  thermometer,  in  the 
open  air,  stands  at  60°  in  the  shade,  the  weather  is 
mild  ;  do  I  not  equally  deny  that  it  is  insufferably  hot, 
or  insufferably  cold  ?  "  Gnosticism,  you  say,  is  certain- 
ly condemned  by  the  apostle,  but  not  the  doctrine  of  the 
Ebionites,  though  it  is  allowed  to  have  existed  in  his 
time."f  The  doctrine  of  the  original  Ebionites,  and 
that  of  the  Cerinthian  Gnosticks,  upon  the  point  of 
Christ's  divinity,  was  the  same.  If  the  apostle  con. 
demns  the  one,  he  condemns  the  other,  whether  he 
lived  or  lived  not  to  see  the  rise  of  the  Ebioaaean  sect.  J 


*  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  10. 
t  Ibid. 

t  "  You  insist  upon  it,"  says  Dr  Priestley,  in   the  fifth  of  his  second  Letters 
'•  that  John  does  censure  the  Unitarian  doctrine  :  \vhuli  is  curious  enough ;  when* 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  IV. 

I  shall  hereafter  have  occasion  to  show,  that  the  Ebio- 
n&an  sect  was  of  a  later  date  than  you  imagine. 

3.  It  is  perhaps,  from  something  of  a  secret  misgiv- 
ing, that  your  interpretation  of  the  phrase  of  "  coming 
in  the  flesh/'  will,  not  be  allowed  to  be  its  natural  and 
obvious  meaning;  that  you  are  so  desirous  to  retreat, 
into  the  strong-hold  of  Jewish  idioms.  You  think,  the 
phrase  in  question  "  is  similar  to  other  Jewish  phrases,"* 
which,  you  think,  will  be  allowed  to  be  merely  expres- 
sive of  humanity.  I  fear,  Sir,  it  hath  been  the  custom 
of  late,  to  lay  too  much  stress  upon  Jewish  idioms, 
in  the  exposition  of  the  didactick  parts  of  the  New 
Testament.  The  gospel  is  a  general  revelation.f  If 
it  is  delivered  in  a  style,  which  is  not  perspicuous  to 
the  illiterate  of  any  nation  except  the  Jewish  ;  it  is  as 
much  locked  up  from  general  apprehension,  as  if  the 
sacred  books  had  been  written  in  the  vernacular  gibber- 
ish of  the  Jews  of  that  age.  The  Holy  Spirit,  which 
directed  the  apostles  and  the  evangelists  to  the  use  of 
the  tongue,  which  in  their  day  was  the  most  generally 
understood — the  Greek — would  for  the  same  reason,  it 


according  to  yoitr  account,  there  were  no  Ebionites  or  Nazarenes ;  that  is,  none 
who  denied  the  preexistence  of  Christ,  till  long  after  the  time  of  John."  But 
this  is  not  according1  to  my  account.  My  account  is,  that  Cerintlms,  who  was 
unquestionably  contemporary  with  St  John,  denied  our  Lord's  preexistence,  and 
•was  in  this  point  the  precursor  of  the  Ebionites.  And  what  if  I  had  said,  that 
St  John  had  censured  a  doctrine  not  taught  till  after  his  death  ?  Do  not  the 
fathers  perpetually  refer  to  proleptick  censures  of  late  heresies  in  the  sacred 
writings  ?  Is  no  proleptick  reprobation>  of  the  late  errors  of  the  Roman  church, 
to  be  found  in  St  Paul's  epistles  ? 

*  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  8. 

f  "  The  religion  of  Christ  was  an  universal  religion,  and  the  doctrines  of  the 
gospel,  were  calculated  for  the  western  as  well  as  the  eastern  hemisphere/' 
See  Mr  Shepherd's  Preface,  to  his  Free  Examination  of  the  Sociiuan 
of  the  prefatory  verges  of  St  John's  gospel. 


tE'l\  1?.  TO  Ell  PRIESTLEV. 

may  be  presumed,  suggest  to  them  a  style  which  might 
be  generally  perspicuous.  It  is  therefore  a  principle 
With  me,  that  the  true  sense  of  any  phrase  in  the  New 
Testament  is,  for  the  most  part,  what  may  be  called  its 
standing  sense  :  that  which  will  be  the  first  to  occur  to 
common  people  of  every  country,  and  in  every  age  :  and 
I  am  apt  to  think,  that  the  difference  between  this  stan- 
ding sense,  and  the  Jewish  sense  will,  in  all  cases,  be 
far  less  than  is  imagined,  or  none  at  all  ;  because, 
though  different  languages  differ  widely,  in  their  refined 
and  elevated  idioms,  common  speech  is,  in  all  langua- 
ges, pretty  much  the  same. 

4.  But  what  are  those  Jewish  phrases,  with  which 
you  would  compare  the  Jewish  phrase  of  "  coming  in 
the  flesh  ?"     They  are  the  word  "  to  come,"  and  the 
phrase  "  partaker  of  flesh  and  blood." 

5.  The  word  "  to  come,''  is  used  by  metaphor,  I  be- 
lieve, in  all  languages,  to  signify,  either  a  man's  birth, 
or  first  entrance  into  publick  life.     He  came  into  the 
world  ;  he  came  into  life  ;  he  came  into  business.     I  have 
no  where  affirmed,  that  such  phrases  denote  any  thing 
more  than  human,  in  any  person  to  whom  they  may  be 
applied.     But  is  the  phrase  "  to  come  in  the  flesh/7  no 
more  than  equivalent  to  the  word  «  to  come  1"  Are  the 
words  in  the  flesh,"  mere  expletives  ?^-If  they  are  not 
expletives,  what  is  their  import,  but  to  limit  the  sense 
of  the  word,  to  come,  to  some  particular  manner  of 
coming  ? — This  limitation,  either  presumes  a  possibility 
of  other  ways  of  coming ;  or  it  is  nugatory.     But  was  it 
possible  for  a  mere  man  to  come  otherwise  than  in  the 
flesh  ?-^-Nothing  can  be  more  decisive  for  my  purpose, 
than  this  comparison  which  you  have  suggested,  between 
the  word  "  to  come,"  which  is  general,  and  the  phrase 


I  £8  LETTERS  IN  1JEPLT  LET.  IT. 

"  to  come  in  the  flesh,"  which  is  spccifick. — My  thanks 
are  due  to  you,  for  this  illustration  of  my  argument ; 
which  may  be  rendered  still  more  evident,  by  applying 
the  two  phrases  successively,  to  a  farailar  instance.  If 
some  future  historian  of  these  planet-stricken  times, 
should  say,  "  In  the  latter  end  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
came  Dr  Priestley,  preaching  the  Unitarian  doctrine," 
no  one  will  suspect  any  thing  more,  than  that  a  man  of 
this  name,  preached  this  doctrine. — But  if  the  historian 
should  say,  "Dr  Priestley  came  in  the  flesh,  preaching 
this  doctrine  ;"  if  the  writer,  who  may  use  this  expres- 
sion, shall  have  any  credit  in  his  day,  a  general  curiosity 
will  be  excited  to  know,  whether  Dr  Priestley  had  it 
in  his  power,  to  come  in  any  way  without  his  flesh, 
"unuiariacled  with  membrane,  joint,  or  limb:"  and  when 
once  it  shall  be  found,  that  he  had  not ;  the  style  of  the 
writer  will  be  condemned,  and  his  credit  perhaps  lessen- 
ed.— I  leave  you  to  make  the  application. 

6.  But  you  think,  that  St  John's  phrase,  that  "  Christ 
came  in  the  flesh,"  may  be  expounded  by  St  Paul's 
phrase,  that  «  he  was  partaker  of  flesh  and  blood."  The 
passage  to  which  you  refer  is  this — "  Forasmuch  then 
as  the  children  are  partakers  of  flesh  and  blood,  he  also 
himself  likewise  took  part  of  the  same."*  As  you  have 
only  hinted,  that  some  argument  might  be  drawn  from 
this  text,  to  confirm  your  sense  of  St  John's  phrase ;  I  am 
left  to  divine  what  your  argument  might  be.  Perhaps 
you  would  reason  thus. — In  this  passage,  it  is  said  of 
men,  that  they  are  partakers  of  flesh  and  blood  ;  and  this 
expression  is  evidently  descriptive,  of  the  condition  of 


*  Heb.  A.  14. 


LET.  IT.  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 

humanity.  It  appears  therefore,  that  to  be  "  a  partaker 
of  llesh  and  blood,"  is  a  Jewish  phrase,  which  signifies 
44  to  be  a  man."  But  in  this  same  passage,  it  is  said  of 
Christ,  that  "  he  likewise  took  part  of  flesh  and  blood." 
It  is  said  of  Christ  therefore,  that  he  was  a  man  like 
other  men  :  consequently,  nothing  more  can  be  meant  by 
his  "  coming  in  the  flesh." — If  this  be  your  intended 
argument,  1  reply — that  Christ  was,  indeed,  a  man  like 
other  men :  and  this  perhaps,  is  all  that  is  implied  in 
St  Paul's  assertion,  that  he  was  "  partaker  of  flesh  and 
blood."  But  it  follows  not,  that  this  is  all  which  is  im- 
plied in  St  John's  expression,  that  "Jesus  Christ  came 
in  the  flesh  ;"  which  asserts  indeed  his  humanity,  but 
with  an  evident  allusion  to  a  prior  condition :  and  the 
proper  conclusion,  from  the  comparison  of  St  John's 
expression  with  St  Paul's,  is  this :  that  the  two  are  not, 
as  you  suppose,  equivalent. 

7.  But  I  suspect,  that  you  connect  St  Paul's  expres- 
sion with  your  own  doctrine  of  materialism ;  and  that 
you  would  argue  thus. — Since  it  is  said  of  men,  who 
are  flesh  and  blood,  and  nothing  else,  that  they  partake 
of  flesh  and  blood  ;  therefore,  "  to  partake  of  flesh  and 
blood,"  in  the  Jewish  language,  and  "  to  be  flesh  and 
blood,"  in  other  languages,  are  equivalent  phrases. 
Therefore  Christ,  of  whom  it  is  also  said,  that  he  par- 
took of  flesh  and  blood,  was  mere  flesh  and  blood  ;  a 
man  like  other  men,  in  whom  the  mental  faculties  were 
the  result  of  organization.  Thus,  you  will  say,  the 
notion  of  Christ's  preexistence,  much  more  of  his  divini- 
ty, is  overturned  by  the  apostle's  assertion  ;  and,  what- 
ever may  have  been  imagined,  no  allusion  to  his  pre- 
existence or  his  divinity,  was  intended  in  any  expres- 
sions of  the  sacred  writerg.  The  assertion  therefore  of 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  IV. 

Christ's  real  manhood,  is  all  that  can  be  contained  in 
St  John's  expressions,  that  "  Christ  is  come  in  the 
flesh/'  But  in  this  argument,  the  conclusion  results  not, 
from  any  evident  parallelism,  of  the  different  phrases 
used  by  St  Paul  and  by  St  John  ;  but  it  is  a  conse- 
quence, from  a  particular  interpretation  of  St  Paul'f 
phrase ;  which  interpretation  of  St  Paul,  rests  not  upon 
any  thing  in  his  expressions,  but  upon  something  quite 
out  of  Scripture :  upon  your  notion  of  the  mere  material-, 
ity  of  man.  To  have  shown  the  true  foundation  of  this 
argument,  is  to  have  confuted  it. 

8.  I  must  remark,  that  in  whatever  form  this  argu- 
ment may  be  drawn,  it  will  rest  solely  on  the  translation 
of  the  sacred  text.     For  in  the  original,  man's  connex- 
ion with  flesh  and  blood,  and  Christ's  connexion,  are 
expressed  by   different  words :   *e>cowyr>jxe  and  yuerfco^. 
A  difference,  which,  however  slight  it  may  appear  to 
you,  was  thought  of  sufficient  importance  to  be  preserved 
in  the  Vulgate  :  communicaverant — participavit.* 

9.  But,  not  to  lay  a  stress,  upon  any  critical  refine- 
ments upon  single  expressions,  let  me  ask  your  opinion, 
Sir,  upon  the  general  sense  of  the  passage,  in  which  this 
phrase,   « to  partake  of  flesh  and  blood,"  occurs.     1 
would  appeal  to  yourself,  whether  the  conclusion,  which 
you  would  build  upon  that  particular  expression,  is  not 
overthrown  by  the  general  sense  of  the  passage.     The 
purport  of  the  passage  is,  to  assign  a  reason  why  the 
Redeemer  should  partake  of  flesh  and  blood ;  that  is, 
\vhy  he  should  be  a  man :  but  a  reason  why  a  man 
should  be  a  man,  one  would  not  expect  to  find  in  a  sober 


•  That  xc7,'*7i0  Is  more  than  f^tk^v.    See  lamblich.  de  Myst.  sec.  2.  cap  Y. 


LET.  /r.  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 

man's  discourse.  For  why  any  thing  should  be  what  it 
is,  rather  than  what  it  is  not,  is  a  question  which  few,  I 
think,  would  ask,  and  none  would  attempt  to  answer. 
The  attempt  to  as.sign  a  reason,  why  the  Redeemer 
should  be  a  man,  implies  both  that  he  might  have  been, 
without  partaking  of  the  human  nature,  and  by  conse- 
quence, that  in  his  own  proper  nature  he  was  originally, 
something  different  from  man ;  and  that  there  might 
have  been  an  expectation,  that  he  would  make  his  ap- 
pearance, in  some  form  above  the  human.  It  particu- 
larly implies,  that  an  expectation  of  his  appearance  ia 
some  higher  form,  might  be  expected  to  prevail  among 
the  persons,  to  whom  this  reason  is  assigned  ;  so  that 
the  manifest  manhood  of  Christ,  would  be  likely  to  be 
an  objection  with  them,  to  his  claim  to  the  character  of 
the  Messiah.  This,  Sir,  seems  to  deserve  your  parti- 
cular attention.  For  the  persons,  to  whom  the  apostl* 
renders  these  reasons  for  the  manhood  of  the  Redeemer, 
were  the  Hebrews;  the  first  Jewish  Christians;  of  whom 
you  say,  that  before  their  conversion  at  least,  "  they  had 
no  idea  that  their  Messiah  was  to  come  down  from  hea- 
ven,'7* having  never  been  taught  by  their  prophets,  to 
expect  "  any  other  than  a  man  like  themselves,  in  that 
illustrious  character."! 

10.  Upon  the  whole,  since  the  phrase  of  "  coming  ia 
the  flesh,"  must  be  more  than  equivalent  to  the  word  "  to 
come  ;1f  since  there  is  no  evidence  of  its  supposed  paral- 
lelism with  St  Paul's  phrase,  of  "  partaking  of  flesh  and 
blood;"  since,  in  the  discourse  of  any  but  an  Unitarian^ 


*  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  49. 
|  ilist.  of  Corrup.  vol.  i.  t>.  9. 

II 


LETTERS  IN  KEPLY  LET.  IV. 

it  must  involve  an  allusion  to  the  incarnation  and  divini- 
ty of  our  Lord ;  your  defence  of  your  argument  from 
St  John's  first  epistle,  is  insufficient :  the  argument  is 
still  to  be  considered  as  running  in  a  circle,  and  it  was 
properly  adduced  as  the  second,  among  my  specimens  of 
insufficient  proof. 

I  am,  &c. 

N.  B.  The  argument,  which  Dr  Priestley  has  advan- 
ced in  the  fifth  of  his  Second  Letters,  in  favour  of  his 
own  interpretation  of  the  phrase  "  coming  in  the  flesh," 
from  a  passage  in  St  Polycarp's  epistle,  is  considered 
and  refuted  in  the  first  of  the  Supplemental  Disqui. 
sitions. 


LET.  V.  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 


LETTER  FIFTH. 

The  Archdeacon's  interpretation  of  Clemens  Eomanus 
defended. — The  shorter  epistles  of  Ignatius  genuine. 

DEAR  SIR. 

HAVING,  to  your  own  entire  satisfaction,  made 
good  your  argument  from  St  John's  first  epistle,  against 
my  exceptions ;  you  proceed  to  reply  to  the  testimo- 
nies which  I  produced  from  Clemens  Romanus,  for  the 
preexistence  and  divinity  of  our  Lord. 

2.  When  Clemens  says,  "  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
came  not  in  the  pomp  of  pride  and  arrogance,  although 
he  had  it  in  his  power,"  you  say,  that  the  coming  allu- 
ded to,  was  "  no  coming  from  heaven  to  earth ;  and 
that  the  pomp  of  pride  and  arrogance,  in  which  our 
Lord  came  not,  stands  for  an  "  ostentatious  display"  of 
the  miraculous  powers,  which  our  Lord  never  made.* 
To  this  it  is  sufficient  to  reply,  that  my  interpretation 
rests  upon  the  literal  sense  of  the  holy  father's  words, 
which  you  suppose  to  be  figurative ;  that  you  have 
nothing  to  ohject  to  the  literal  interpretation,  but  that 
it  suits  not  with  your  own  opinions ;  whereas  I  have 
something  of  great  importance  to  say  in  its  defence ; 


*  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  13. 


TO  DR  PRIESTLEY.  LET.  V 

that  it  is  established  by  the  context.  "  He  came  not 
(says  Clemens)  in  the  pomp  of  pride  and  arrogance, 
although  he  had  it  in  his  power,  but  in  humility,  as  the 
Holy  Spirit  spake  concerning  him."  The  pomp  there- 
fore of  pride  and  arrogance,  in  which  our  Lord  came 
not,  is  that  pomp,  which  is  the  proper  opposite  of  the 
humility,  in  which  the  Holy  Spirit  had  foretold  that  he 
should  come — For  he  came  not  in  that — but  in  this  he 
came.  Now  to  determine  what  this  humility  is,  Clem- 
ens immediately  goes  on,  to  cite  the  prophecies,  which 
describe  the  Messiah's  low  condition.  The  humility, 
therefore,  of  an  ordinary  condition,  is  that  in  which  it  ia 
said  the  Messiah  came.  The  pomp,  therefore,  of  a 
high  conJition,  is  the  pomp,  in  which  it  is  said  he  came 
not,  although  he  had  it  in  his  power  so  to  come.  The 
expressions  therefore  clearly  imply,  that  our  Lord,  ere 
he  came,  had  the  power  to  choose,  in  what  condition  he 
Would  be  born. 

3.  In  citing  this  passage  of  Clemens  Romanus,  I 
dealt  very  liberally  with  you  ;  as  I  trust,  indeed,  that  I 
lave  done  in  every  part  of  the  argument.  I  cited  the 
passage,  as  it  stands  in  our  modern  copies.  More  an- 
cient copies,  those  which  Jerome  used  instead,  of 
"  although  he  had  it  in  his  power,"  had 
$wotptvo(9  although  he  had  all  things  in  his  power." 
This  appears  from  Jerome's  translation  of  the  passage, 
which  is  in  these  words,  "  Sceptrum  Dei,  Dominus 
Jesus  Christus  non  venit  in  jactautia  superbLE,  cum 
possit  omnia."*  Now  with  this  emendation  of  the 


*  Hieronym.  in  Esaiam,  eap.  lit. 


LET.  V.  LETTERS  IN  REPLY  125 

last  clause,  which  it  seems  was  an  assertion  of  our 
Lord's  omnipotence,  you  are  welcome  to  make  what 
you  can  of  the  preceding  clause,  by  figurative  inter- 
pretations.* 

4.  No  figurative  interpretations  will  elude  the  force 
of  my  citations  from  Ignatius — but  it  is  the  particular 
happiness  of  the  Unitarian  writers,  that  they  are  never 
found  at  a  loss  for  an  expedient.  All  that  I  say  of  the 
repeated  assertion  of  our  Lord's  divinity,  in  the  epistles 
of  Ignatius,  you  allow  to  be  true,  "  according  to  our  pre- 
sent copies  of  his  epistles.  But  the  genuineness  of  them, 
(you  say,)  is  not  only  very  much  doubted,  but  generally 
given  up  by  the  learned."  And  lest  this  assertion 
should  want  that  appearance  of  weight,  which  an  air  of 
confidence  gives,  you  even  tax  my  ingenuity  "  for  con- 
cealing a  circumstance,  which,  (you  say,)  I  must  have 
known ;"  and  you  challenge  me  to  prove  these  epistles, 


*  Dr  Priestley,  to  -whom  it  is  a  matter  of  equal  ease,  to  bring  the  holy  Scrip- 
tares,  or  the  fathers,  upon  all  occasions  to  speak  his  own  sentiments,  findg  no 
assertion  of  our  Lord's  omnipotence  in  this  clause  of  Clemens,  thus  rendered  hy 
Jerome  :  nothing  more  than  an  allusion  "  to  the  great  power  of  which  he  became 
possessed,  after  the  descent  of  the  Spirit  of  God  upon  him  at  his  baptism."  (See 
the  second  -of  Dr  Priestley's  second  Letters  to  me.)  That  is,  to  affirm  that  a 
person  hath  all  things  in  his  power,  is,  in  Dr  Priestley's  apprehension  of  the  terms, 
r,o  affirm,  that  at  a  certain  time  he  had  tome  things  in  his  power.  Had  any  such 
allusion  been  intended  to  the  miraculous  powers,  the  verb  potsit  in  Jerome's  Latin, 
should  have  been  in  one  or  the  other  of  the  preterite  tenses.  By  the  use  of 
the  present  tense,  Jerome  describes  a  plenitude  of  power  now  enjoyed.  This 
plenitude  of  power  now  enjoyed,  is  alleged  as  what  might  have  been  exercised 
by  our  Lord  in  time  past,  with  respect  to  the  manner  of  his  own  coming.  It 
n  a  plenitude  of  power  therefore,  ever  present  to  our  Lord,  now  and  in  time 
past;  and  being  allowed  to  be  now  present,  is  supposed  of  necessary  conse- 
quence, to  be  capable  of  effects  in  time  past.  But  this  describes  nothing  less 
than  the  attribute  of  ompipot«Hee.  But  language  b  no  key  to  "  unlock  the  toiad 
•f  a  SocinSan  " 


LETTERS  IN  RKPLV  LET.  V 

"  as  we  now  have  them,  to  be  the  genuine  epistles  of 
Ignatius."! 

5.  Sir,  if  the  genuineness  of  these  epistles  he  general- 
ly given  up  by  the  learned,  my  ignorance,  not  my  inge- 
nuity, is  to  be  blamed,  that  I  cited  them  as  genuine.     I 
indeed  knew  nothing  of  this  general  giving  up.     But 
since  the  testimony  of  Ignatius  is  allowed  to  be  express, 
if  the  epistles  be  genuine  from  which  it  is  produced ; 
permit  me  to  tell  you,  in  few  words,  what  I  know  of 
these  epistles. 

6.  I  know,  that  ancient  writers  mention  seven  epistles 
of  Ignatius,  written  upon  his  journey  from  Antioch, 
where  he  was  bishop,  through  Asia  Minor ;  for  that 
way  his  journey  lay,  when  he  was  carried  to  Rome  by 
Trajan's  order,  to  be  exposed  to  wild  beasts.     Of  these 
epistles,  six  are  said  to  have  been  addressed  to  the 
churches  of  six  different  cities :  Ephesus,  Magnesia  upon 
Mseander,  Tralles,  Rome,  Philadelphia,  Smyrna ;  and 
the  seventh  was  addressed  to  Polycarp.     I  know,  that 
besides  some  other  epistles,  confessedly  spurious,  two 
editions,  a  longer  and  a  shorter,  are  at  this  day  current, 
of  seven  epistles  under  the  name  of  Ignatius,  inscribed 
to  those  to  whom  the  real  epistles  of  the  blessed  martyr, 
according  to  the  ecclesiastical  historians,  were  addressed. 
The  longer  epistles  first  appeared  in  print,  in  an  old 
Latin  version,  published  by  Father   Stapulensis,   in 
1498 ;  a  corresponding  Greek  text  was  published  by 
Valentine  Pacseus,  from  a  manuscript  in  the  Augustan 
library,  in  the  year  1557-     The  shorter  edition  likewise 


*  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  IS. 


LET.  V.  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 

made  its  first  appearance  in  print,  in  an  old  Latin  ver- 
sion, published  by  Usher,  from  two  manuscripts,  in  the 
year  164-i.  The  Greek  was  published  by  Isaac  Vos- 
sius,  in  164*6,  from  a  manuscript  in  the  Medicsean  library 
at  Florence.  The  Medicsean  manuscript  being  imper- 
fect in  the  end,  wanted  the  epistle  to  the  Romans.  But 
a  Greek  text  of  this  epistle,  perfectly  corresponding 
with  Usher's  Latin  version,  was  published  at  Paris, 
from  a  manuscript  of  Colbert's,  by  Mr  Iluinard,  in  the 
year  1689. 

7.  It  has  been  made  a  question,  whether  the  shorter 
epistles  are  from  abridged,  or  the  longer  from  interpola- 
ted copies.  The  phraseology  of  the  longer,  seems  in  some, 
parts  accommodated  to  the  Arian  notions :  that  of  the 
shorter,  is  every  where  agreeable  to  the  Catholick  faith. 
The  shorter  edition  hath  the  suffrage  of  the  fathers  of  the 
five  first  centuries;  their  quotations,  which  are  numerous, 
every  where  agreeing  with  this  text.  William  Whis- 
ton,  a  man  whose  memory  is  more  to  be  esteemed  for 
his  integrity,  and  the  extent  and  variety  of  his  reading, 
than  for  the  soundness  of  his  judgment;  from  pure  at- 
tachment to  the  Arian  cause,  maintained  the  authority 
of  the  longer  copies ;  but  his  opinion  hath  found  but  few 
abettors,  and  those  of  inconsiderable  name,  even  in  his 
own  party.  The  Presbyterian  divines,  desirous  to  get 
rid  of  so  great  an  authority  as  that  of  Ignatius,  in  favour 
of  Episcopacy,  the  rights  of  which  are  set  very  high  in 
these  epistles,  were  unwilling  to  allow  their  authenticity 
in  either  form.  But  with  a  majority  of  the  learned,  these 
seven  epistles  are  received  as  authentick  ;  and  the  short- 
er edition  is  supposed  to  exhibit  the  genuine  text.  This, 
at  least,  was  the  opinion  of  Isaac  Vossius,  Usher,  Ham- 
mond, Petavius,  Grotius,  Pearson,  Bull,  Cave,  Wake, 


LETTEUS  IN  REPLY  LET.  T. 

Cotelerius,  Grabe,  Pupin,  Tillemont,  Lc  Clerc.  On 
the  other  side,  stand  no  names  to  be  compared  with 
these,  except  the  three  of  Salmasius,  Blondel,  and 
Callous.  Perhaps  you  will  add  that  of  Bochart,  But 
the  great  Bochart's  doubts,  went  to  one  only  of  the 
seven,*  the  epistle  to  the  Romans ;  and  they  are  found- 
ed on  a  chronology  of  the  word  Leopardus,  which  Pear- 
son  hath  proved  to  be  erroneous. f 

8.  Mosheim  holds  a  middle  opinion.  The  question 
of  preference  between  the  two  editions,  he  thinks  unde- 
cided. Whichever  edition  be  preferred,  he  thinks  the 
suspicion  of  interpolation  and  corruption  cannot  be  en- 
tirely removed.  That  these  epistles  are  of  great  anti- 
quity, he  thinks  certain.  That  they  are  not  altogether 
forgeries,  so  credible,  that  nothing  can  be  more.  But 
how  far  they  are  sincere,  he  takes  to  be  a  knot  which 
cannot  be  untied.J  At  the  same  time  he  allows,  what 
with  me  entirely  overturns  his  singular  opinion,  that  the 
authenticity  of  them  would  never  have  been  called  in 
question,  had  they  not  contained,  what  the  advocates  of 
Episcopacy  knew  how  to  turn  to  the  advantage  of  their 
cause ;  which,  when  the  Presbyterians  and  others,  who 
were  for  abolishing  the  privileges  of  the  clergy,  under- 
stood ;  they  attacked  them  with  a  warmth,  by  which  they 
more  harmed  their  own  reputation  than  the  authenticity 
of  those  writings. ||  It  is  true,  he  taxes  the  writers  on 
the  other  side,  but  not  so  generally,  with  no  less  in- 
temperance.  But,  in  my  judgment,  the  authenticity 


*  Hierozoic.    P.  I.  lib.  iii.  cap.  8. 

|  Vimlicite  Ignatianse,  P.  II.  p.  91—94. 

$  De  Rt'bus  Chratianorud  aate  Coustantmum,  p.  1CI, 

D  Ibid.  p.  165. 


LET.  V.  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY,  . 

of  ancient  writings  must  be  set  very  high,  which  could 
never  have  been  brought  in  question,  but  through  pre- 
judice. 

9.  With  this  preponderance  therefore,  of  authorities 
on  the  side  of  the  epistles,  and  with  this  confession  of 
Mosheira  against  his  own  opinion,  1  shall  take  the  liber- 
ty to  appeal  to  them,  as  they  stand  in  the  shorter  edition, 
as  the  genuine  writings  of  the  blessed  martyr:  not  ivcc 
indeed  from  those  blemishes,  which  arise  from  the  haste, 
the  carelessness,  and  the  ignorance  of  transcribers  ;  but 
upon  the  whole,  not  less  sincere,  than  most  other  pieces 
of  the  same  antiquity.  I  shall  appeal  to  them  with  the 
less  scruple,  forasmuch  as.  the  same  sincerity,  which  I 
ascribe  to  them,  arid  wliich  is  quite  sufficient  for  my 
purpose,  is  allowed  by  the  learned  and  the  candid 
Larduer ;  whose  judgment  must  have  been  biassed  by 
his  opinions,  in  prejudice  of  these  writings,  if  any  thing 
could  have  biassed  his  judgment,  in  prejudice  of  the 
evidence  of  truth.  After  suggesting  in  no  very  confident 
language,  that  "  even  the  smaller  epistles  may  have  been 
tampered  with  by  the  Arians,  or  the  orthodox,  or  both ;" 
he  addsj  "  I  do  not  affirm,  that  there  are  in  them  any 
considerable  corruptions  or  alterations."*  If  no  consi- 
derable corruptions  or  alterations,  certainly  none,  re- 
specting a  point  of  such  importance,  as  the  original 
nature  of  Christ.  I  will  therefore  still  appeal  to  these 
epistles,  as  sufficiently  sincere,  to  be  decisive  upon  the 
point  in  dispute.  Nor,  shall  I  think  myself  obliged  to 


•  These  words  of  Dr  Larduer,  are  cited  by  Dr  Priestley  himself,  in  his  reply 
to  the  Animadversions,  in  ihe  Moiii'uly  Review  of  June,  1783,  i>.  36.  They  make 
a.  part  of  his  proof,  that  these  epistles  are  so  corrupted,  as  not  to  be  quoted  with 
*ifety.  Sec  reply  to  Animadversions,  p.  35. 

17 


LETTERS  IN  RF,PLY  LKT.  V, 

go  into  the  proof  of  their  authenticity,  till  you  have 
given  a  satisfactory  reply,  to  every  part  of  Bishop  Pear- 
son's elaborate  defence :  a  work,  which  I  suspect  you 
have  not  yet  looked  through. 

I  am,  &c. 

P.  S.  To  the  authorities  for  the  epistles  of  Igna- 
tius, according  to  the  shorter  copies,  1  must  add  Fa- 
bricius. 


LET.  VJ.  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY, 


LETTER  SIXTH. 

In  reply  to  l)r  Priestley9 e  second. — The  difference  of 
the  Ebionites  and  Nazarenes,  no  singular  or  new 
opinion  of  the  Archdeacon's. — The  same  thing  maz'n- 
tained  by  Mosheim  and  other  criticks  of  great  name. 
flr  Priestley9 s  arguments  from  Origen  and  Eusebi- 
us,  not  neglected  in  the  Archdeacon's  Charge. — Dr 
Priestley's  conclusions  from  the  several  passages  cited 
by  him  from  Epiphanies,  confuted. —  The  Nazarenes, 
no  sect  of  the  apostolick  age. — Ebion,  not  contempo- 
rary with  St  John. —  The  antiquity  of  a  sect,  not  a 
proof  of  its  orthodoxy. 

DEAR  SIR, 

THE  citadel  of  your  strength,  is  the  argument  from 
the  Nazarenes;  to  which,  however,  I  have  given  a 
place  among  my  specimens  of  insufficient  proof.  You 
find  the  attack  upon  this  fortress,  warm  on  every  side  ; 
and  your  resistence  is  proportionally  vigorous.  So  im- 
patient are  you  for  its  defence,  that  you  take  it  out  of  its 
turn,  passing  by  my  third  specimen — the  argument  from 
Athanasius;  which  you  very  properly  consider  as  au 
outwork,  which  will  be  indeed  of  little  consequence,  if 
the  citadel  should  surrender — which  however,  must  be 
the  case ;  neither  force  nor  stratagem  can  defend  it. 

2.  Two  points,  you  know,  must  be  made  out  to  save 
this  argument :  the  oue,  that  the  faith  of  the  Nazareuee 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  VI. 

was  Unitarian  ;  the  other,  that  these  Unitarian  Naza- 
renes  were  the  Hebrew  Christians,  or  the  members  of 
the  primitive  church  of  Jerusalem.  To  prove  the  first 
point,  you  abide  by  your  original  assertion,  that  the  Na- 
zarenes  and  the  Ebionites,  were  one  and  the  same  peo- 
ple, under  different  names.  This  assertion  you  attempt 
to  defend  against  my  objections.  We  shall  see  with 
what  success. 

3.  You  allow,  "  it  has  been  imagined  by  some,  that 
there  was  a  difference  between  the  doctrine  of  the  Ebi- 
onites and   the  Nazarenes,  concerning  the  person  of 
Christ."*     Something  of  a  difference,  some  half-witted 
criticks  have,  it  seems,  imagined.    But  you  take  care  to 
insinuate  in  the  next  sentence,  that  none  before  me,  ever 
dreamed  of  so  wide  a  difference,  as  I  would  put  between, 
them.     It  had  only  been  imagined  "  that  the  Ebionites 
disbelieved,  while  the  Nazarenes  maintained,  the  mira- 
culous conception  ;"f  both  concurring  in  the  disbelief 
of  our  Lord's  divinity.     "  For  as  to  any  Nazarenes, 
who  believed  that  Christ  was  any  thing  more  than  man, 
you  find  no  trace  of  them  in  history."}    And  you  think 
it  extraordinary,   "  that  it  should  now  be  made  a  point, 
to  find  some  difference  between  the  Nazarenes  and  the 
Ebionites,  inasmuch  as  you  believe,  no  critick  of  any 
name  in  the  last  age,  pretended  to  find  any."||     Indeed, 
you  may  well  be  astonished.     For,  "  the  learned  Jere- 
miah Jones"§>  wrote  a  chapter  to  prove  them  the  same 
people. 

4.  Indeed,  Sir,  I  must  take  shame  to  myself,  and 


Letters  to  Dr  Uorsley,  p.  14.       f  Ibid.        t  Ibid. 
Itud.  p.  SS.  §  Ibki. 


LET.  VI.  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY.  133 

confess,  that  this  learned  Jeremiah  Jones,  is  not  of  my 
acquaintance.  I  find  upon  inquiry,  that  he  is  very  much 
unknown  among  my  brethren  of  the  establishment ;  I 
am  informed,  however,  that  he  was  not  undeserving  of 
the  epithet  which  you  have  coupled  with  his  name,  he 
was,  it  seems,  the  tutor  of  the  venerable  Lardner,  and 
was  thought,  in  natural  ability,  to  excel  his  pupil.  Ne- 
vertheless, Sir,  I  conceive  I  may  be  pardoned,  if  I  pre- 
sume to  dissent  from  the  opinion  of  Jeremiah  Jones,  not- 
withstanding the  importance  that  may  have  accrued  to 
it  from  the  approbation  of  Dr  Priestley.  That,  Sir, 
which  you  are  pleased  to  call  an  imagination  of  some, 
the  notion  of  a  difference  between  the  Nazarenes  and 
the  Ebionites,  was  the  decided  opinion  of  a  writer  bet- 
ter known  than  Jeremiah  Jones —  the  illustrious  Mo- 
sheim.  "  This  little  body  of  Christians,"  says  that 
learned  historian,  "  which  coupled  Moses  with  Christ, 
split  again  into  two  sects,  distinguished  from  each  other 
by  their  doctrines  concerning  Christ,  and  the  permanent 
obligation  of  the  law ;  and  perhaps  by  other  circum- 
stances."* As  a  certain  proof  that  they  were  two  dis- 
tinct sects,  he  observes,  that  each  had  its  own  gospel. 
He  says,  that  "  the  Nazarenes  had  a  better  and  truer 
notion  of  Christ  than  the  Ebionites."t 

5.  It  may  be,  Mosheim  was  the  inventor  of  this  dis- 
tinction, since  you  have  not  found  it  in  any  critick  of 


•  Puaillum  vero  hoc  Christianorum  agraen,  quod  Mosen  Christo  sociabat,  in 
duas  iterura  dissiliebat  sectas;  dogmatibus  de  Christo,  legisque  necessitate,  forte 
aliis  etiam  rebus  sejunctas.  J\hsheim  de  Rebus  Chriztianorum  ante  Constant^ 
num.  SKC.  2.  sec.  xxxix. 

•J-  Nazarei  nimirum  et  de  Christo  multe  rectius  et  verius  sentiebant  quam 
Ebionei.  Ibid.  n.  *  *  *. 


LETTERS  IN  KEFLY  LET.  VI. 

a  uy  name  of  the  last  age.  Perhaps,  Sir,  you  and  I, 
when  we  speak  of  criticks  of  any  name,  may  not  always 
agree  in  the  persons,  to  whom  we  would  apply  that  des- 
cription. May  I  then  take  leave  to  ask,  what  you  think 
of  Hugo  Grotius  ?  Was  He  a  critick  of  any  name  ? 
Vossius,  Spencer,  Huetius,  were  these  criticks  of  any 
name  ?  If  they  were,  Sir,  you  must  come  again  to  your 
confessions.  For  Hugo  Grotius,  Vossius,  Spencer,  and 
Huetius*  agree  that  the  Nazarenes  and  Ebionites, 
though  sometimes  confounded,  were  distinct  sects  ;  and 
they  maintain  the  opinion,  which  I  now  maintain,  of 
the  high  orthodoxy  of  the  proper  Nazarenes,  in  the  arti- 
cle of  our  Lord's  divinity. 

6.  But  it  may  be,  that  the  Nazarenes  were  Unitarian, 
though  they  wrere  not  Ebionites.     For  the  doctrine  con- 
cerning our  Lord's  divinity,  is  not  the  only  point,  in 
which  the  pretended  difference  is  placed  :  and  "as  to 
any  Nazarenes,  who  believed  that  Christ  was  any  thing 
more  than  man,  you  find  no  trace  of  them  in  history ."f 
You  have  then  been  less  successful  than  Hugo  Grotius, 
Vossius,  Spencer,  Huetius  :  not  to  mention  others  of  in- 
ferior note. 

7.  You  see,  Sir,  (our  readers  at  least  will  see,)  that 
you  had  little  ground  to  represent  the  opinion,  which  I 
maintain,  of  a  difference  between  the  Nazarenes  and 
Ebionites,  as  singular  or  novel.     Your  attempt  to  set  it 
forth  in  that  light,  I  cannot  but  consider  as  a  stratagem, 
which  you  are  willing  to  employ  for  the  preservation  of 


*  Grotius  in  Matth.  c.  i.  Vossius  de  genere  Jesu  Christi,  cap.  ii.  sec.  \. 
Spencer  in  Origen  contra  Celsum,  ad.  p.  56.  Huetiua  in  Origenis  eommentan?., 
p.  74. 

|  Letters  to  Dr  Horslev,  p.  14. 


LET.  VI.  TO  DU  PRIESTLEY 

your  battered  citadel — the  argument  from  the  Naza- 
renes.  In  this  stratagem,  if  I  mistake  not,  you  are  com- 
pletely foiled.  In  your  sallies  against  the  batteries 
which  I  have  raised,  I  trust  you  will  be  little  more  suc- 
cessful. But  as  too  much  of  stratagem  is  apt  to  mix 
itself  with  all  your  operations,  it  will  be  necessary 
that  I  watch  very  narrowly  the  manner  of  your  ap- 
proaches. 

8.  Your  reply  to  my  objections  against  the  testimony, 
which  Epiphanius  is  supposed  to  bear  to  the  identity  of 
the  two  sects,  is  opened  with  a  complaint,  that  I  have 
said  nothing  "  to  the  arguments  from  Origen  and  Euse- 
bius."* Sir,  either  here  is  more  stratagem,  or  you  have 
dealt  by  me,  as  you  profess  to  do  by  the  ancients.  You 
have  only  looked  through  my  Charge.  Had  you  read 
it  through,  you  could  hardly  have  missed  something  that 
I  say  to  the  arguments  from  Origen  and  Eusebius.  I 
flatly  deny  any  direct  testimony  of  Origen,  in  favour  of 
the  identity  which  you  would  prove  ;  and  I  have  shown 
that  the  passages,  from  which  you  would  draw  the  in- 
ference, are  little  to  your  purpose.'^  The  argument 
from  Eusebius,  you  will  be  pleased  to  recollect,  made 
no  part  of  your  original  proof.  It  first  appeared  among 
certain  corrections  and  additions,  which  are  annexed  to 
jour  '<  Reply  to  the  Animadversions"  of  a  learned  wri- 
ter in  the  Monthly  Review.  It  was  impossible  there- 
fore, that  I  should  take  notice  of  it  in  my  Charge,  which 
had  been  sent  to  the  press,  and  was  in  great  part  print- 
ed, before  I  had  any  knowledge  of  the  Reply,  or  indeed 


*  Letters  to  Dr  Horsier,  p.  14. 

t  Charge  I.  sec.  15,  and  Appendix,  sec.  I. 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  VI. 

of  the  animadversions  which  occasioned  it.  But  in  the 
Appendix  to  my  Charge,  which  was  written  after  I  had 
read  your  Reply,  and  in  consequence  of  it — I  complain- 
ed,  that  you  had  made  no  reference  to  the  particular 
passages  of  Eusebiug,  upon  which  you  would  found 
your  argument.* 

9.  However,  that  I  said  something  very  material  to 
the  argument  from  Epiphanius,  you  deny  not.    1  said 
indeed,  that  no  man  could  allege,  as  you  do,  the  testimo- 
ny of  Epiphanius  to  the  identity  of  the  Ebionites  and 
Nazarenes,  who  had  read  to  the  end,  so  much  as  the 
first  sentence  of  Epiphanius's  account  of  the  Ebionites. 
And  I  still  say  the  same  thing :  for  in  that  first  sentence 
Epiphanius  asserts,  that  Ebion  made  additions  to  th& 
doctrine  of  the  Nazarenes.     Among  these  additions  I 
place,  although  you  will  not,  the  mere  humanity  of 
Christ. 

10.  You  tell  me  in  reply,  that  if  I  had  myself  read 
the  second  paragraph  of  this  same  chapter  of  EpiphanU 
us,  it  would  have  shown  me  the  errror  of  my  own  re- 
mark ;  for  in  that  second  paragraph,  you  say  it  appears, 
that  the  difference  between  the  Ebionites  and  the  Naza- 
renes, lay  in  other  particulars,  not  in  the  doctrine  of  the 
mere  humanity  of  Christ. f     You  then  produce  that  pa- 
ragraph, with  a  string  of  other  passages,  confirming,  as 
you  think,  the  assertion  which  you  pretend  to  find  in  it, 
of  the  agreement  of  the  two  sects  upon  the  point  in  ques- 
tion.    Epiphanius  tells  us,  as  you  think,  in  the  second 
paragraph  of  his  first  section  about  the  Ebionites,  "  That 


*  Appendix  to  Charge,  sec.  2. 

f  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  15—17. 


JLET.  VI  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 

Ebion  borrowed  his  abominable  rites  (so  you  render 
$t\vf>ot]  from  the  Samaritans ;  his  opinion  (ywp*?}  from 
tiie  Nazarenes;  his  name  from  the  Jews."  In  the 
second  section,  as  you  understand  him,  he  places  the 
whole  difference  between  the  Nazarenes  and  the  Ebion- 
ites,  in  a  single  circumstance,  totally  unconnected  uith 
the  opinions  about  Christ.  In  the  same  section,  you 
say,  he  speaks  of  the  two  sects  as  inhabiting  the  same 
country,  and  adds,  that  "  agreeing  together,  they  com- 
municated of  their  perverseuess  to  each  other."* 

It.  Now,  Sir,  in  these  quotations,  I  have  to  complain 
partly  of  the  want  of  critical  discernment ;  partly  of 
stratagem  ;  partly  of  unskilful  interpretation  :  and  I 
affirm,  that  uot  one  of  the  passages  alleged,  is  to  your 
purpose- 
15.  For  the  second  paragraph  of  the  first  section,  the 
only  clause  in  it  of  which  you  can  a\ail  yourself,  is  that 
in  which  it  is  asserted,  according  to  your  translation, 

that "  Ebion  took his  opinion  from  the  Nazareues."f 

But  here,  Sir,  is  stratagem.  Why  is  not  the  entire 
clause  produced  ?  Because  the  entire  clause,  would  de- 
feat the  conclusion  which  it  is  brought  to  establish. 
Does  Ephiphanius  say,  that  Ebion  took  his  opinion 
simply  from  the  Nazarenes?  He  says  it  not;  even  if  it 
be  admitted,  that  the  word  yropw  is  rightly  rendered  by 
opinion.  If  opimon  be  indeed  what  is  here  signified  by 
7™^*?,  Epiphanius  says  that  Ebion  took  his  opinion 
from  the  "  the  Oss&ans,  the  Nazor^ans,  and  the  Nasa- 


*  Letter*  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  15. 
t  Ibid. 

18 


138  LETTERS  IN  REPL\  LET.  VI. 

raeans."  The  Nazorseans  of  Epiphanius,  (N«£«f«i«) 
were  the  Christian  Nazarenes.  But  his  Nasav^ans 
were  no  Christians.  They  were  a  Jewish  sect — one  of 
the  seven  which  were  subsisting  at  the  time  of  our 
Lord's  appearance ;  the  fifth  in  Epiphanius's  enumera- 
tion. The  Ossseans,  were  the  sixth  of  those  seven  sects 
of  Judaism.  So  that,  if  any  thing  is  asserted  in  this 
clause  concerning  the  opinions  of  Ebion,  it  is,  that  they 
were  a  mixture  of  the  extravagancies  of  three  sects ;  two 
Jewish,  and  one  Christian.  But  his  general  assertion, 
will  never  determine,  to  which  of  these  three  sources,  any 
particular  opinion  maintained  by  Ebion,  is  to  be  refer- 
red.  It  will  be  probable,  that  this  doctrine  of  our 
Lord's  humanity,  was  an  accommodation  of  the  old  doc- 
trine of  the  Nazarenes,  to  the  prejudices  of  his  Jewish 
friends.  For  how  will  you  prove,  Sir,  that  Ebion,  if  he 
taught  the  same  opinions  which  you  now  maintain,  was 
not  actuated  by  the  same  generous  motives :  a  tender 
charity  for  the  Jews,  whom  he  might  propose,  as  you  do, 
to  reconcile  to  the  evangelick  doctrine,  by  divesting  the 
doctrine  of  every  thing  properly  evangelick  ? 

13.  But  I  contend  further,  that  the  word  ywpw,  in  this 
passage  of  Epiphanius,  is  not  rightly  rendered  by 
opinion.  It  often  indeed  denotes  opinion  in  good  Greek 
writers ;  but  it  is  not  used  in  that  sense  here.  That  it  is 
not,  appears  from  the  subsequent  part  of  the  same  sen- 
tence ;  in  which  ywpn  is  mentioned  as  something  distinct 
from  yvuvic  and  o-yyxaraSwtf  TQY  tvoLyfiMw  (perhaps  we 
should  read  euoyytMrwx)  K«I  aVoroAWK  nift  Tr/riwf .  "  Ebion, 
says  Epiphanius,  desired  to  bear  the  appellation  of  a 
Christian,  but  not  to  adopt  the  practice  of  Christians, 
nor  their  yvopn,  nor  their  knowledge,  nor  their  assent  to 


LET.  VL  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 

to  the  evangelists  and  apostles,  concerning  the  faith.95* 
Now  knowledge  and  assent  concerning  faith  to  the 
evangelists  and  apostles,  include  religious  opinion; 
yvayof,  therefore,  being  mentioned  as  distinct  from  these, 
is  not  opinion.  It  seems  to  be  rather  used  here,  for 
what  is  expressed  in  English  by  the  word  sentiment;  a 
thing  which  often  modifies  opinion,  but  itself  is  not  opi- 
nion. Of  this  use  of  the  word,  examples  are  not  want- 
ing.  "  Ebion,  it  is  said,  possessed  the  sentiments  of 
Ossseans,  Nazarenes,  and  Nasaraeans."  He  resembled 
these  Christian  and  Jewish  sectaries,  in  that  illiberality 
of  sentiment,  which  inclined  the  Nazarenes,  to  think  the 
observance  of  the  ritual  law  necessary  to  a  Christian's 
salvation,  and  disposed  the  Ossseans,  and  the  Nasa- 
raeans,  to  many  senseless  superstitions.  But  this  re- 
semblance is  no  proof,  that  he  took  his  opinion  of  the 
mere  humanity  of  Christ,  from  the  Christian  Naza- 
renes. 

14.  But  if  this  passage  is  not  sufficiently  explicit, 
the  second  section,  you  will  tell  me,  is  decisive.  Un- 
fortunately, the  long  passage  which  you  have  produced 
from  this  section,  wants  to  be  set  in  order,  before  any 
use  can  be  made  of  it :  and  when  we  have  made  the 
best  of  the  present  text,  which  I  fear  is  too  corrupt  to  be 
perfectly  restored  without  manuscripts,  it  will  little  serve 
your  purpose.  Much  indeed  of  the  confusion  arises, 
from  a  false  punctuation,  which  your  own  translation 
sets  in  a  most  conspicuous  light ;  as  a  little  remark  which 


yvawtv,  xcu  VM  TOUT   tuxyfoMev  KJUV  eMWfoAw  mpi  Trwus  <rt/}>x.aikt.- 


LETTERS  IN  KEPLY  LET.  VI. 

you  have  thrown  in,  points  out  the  correction  of  it. 
«  ....•  and  first,  he  asserted  that  Christ  was  horn  of 
the  commerce  and  seed  of  a  man,  namely  Joseph,  as 
we  signified  above."*  This  assertion  of  Ebion's,  had 
not  heen  signified  above  :  it  is  mentioned  in  this  passage 
for  the  first  time.  You  remark,  that  these  words,  "  as 
we  signified  above,"  refer  to  the  first  words  of  the  first 
section  :  but  in  the  first  words  of  the  first  section,  we 
have  no  signification  of  Ebion's  denial  of  the  miraculous 
conception,  nor  in  any  words  previous  to  this  clause  of 
the  second  section  :  and  the  reference  cannot  be  to  pre- 
vious words,  for  that  which  no  previous  words  contain. 
The  reference  therefore,  which  is  explicitly  to  some- 
thing  previous,  can  have  no  connexion,  with  the  denial 
of  the  miraculous  conception,  which  is  now  mentioned 
for  the  first  time.  It  must  connect  however,  with  some- 
thing in  the  writer's  present  narrative,  or  it  hath  no 
meaning.  Now  in  the  words  which  immediately  pre- 
cede the  clause,  which  regards  Ebion's  heterodoxy  upon 
the  article  of  the  conception,  that  is,  in  the  initial  clauses 
of  this  section,  Epiphanius  actually  repeats  what  he 
had  said  before.  With  these  clauses  therefore,  this  re- 
ference  to  the  former  part  of  his  narrative  is  to  be  con- 
nected ;  and  the  intervening  clause,  regarding  the  con- 
ception,  should  be  set  out  as  a  parenthesis.  I  will  now 
present  you  with  the  Greek  text  properly  pointed,  ac- 
companied with  two  translations  ;  your  own  on  one 
side,  and  mine  upon  the  other ;  that  our  readers,  compa- 
ring both  with  the  original,  may  judge  for  themselves  of 
the  propriety  of  each. 


*  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  16. 


TO  DR.  PRIESTLEY. 


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1  [ :•;  LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  Yl 

15.  The  manner  in  which  Ebion's  opinion,  concern- 
cerning  the  conception  of  our  Lord,  is  mentioned  in  pa- 
renthesis,  seems  to  exclude  it  from  those  principles, 
which  he  borrowed  from  other  sectaries.     If  those  other 
sectaries  therefore  were  the  Nazarenes,  then  this  opin- 
ion, as  it  should  seem,  was  no  principle  with  them  ; 
and  this  passage,  like  most  of  your  quotations,  contra. 
diets  what  you  have  brought  it  up  to  prove. 

16.  You  will  perhaps  object,   that  if  Ephiphanius 
meant  to  insinuate,  that  Ebion  and  the  Nazarenes  held 
different  opinions  about  Christ ;  he  would  not  have  na- 
med another  thing,  as  the  single  point  in  which  they 
differed.     Nor  hath  he  done  this.     Having  described 
Ebion's  doctrine,  as  a  compilation  of  the  extravagancies 
of  other  sects,  he  says,  he  differed  only  in  a  single  point. 
That  is,  there  was  but  a  single  point  in  his  whole  sys- 
tem, in  which  he  differed  from  all  the  sects  from  which 
he  borrowed  :  which  was  this,  that  his  Judaism  was  of 
the  Samaritan  cast.    But  it  follows  not  from  this,  that 
whatever  he  maintained  besides,  was  to  be  found  in  the 
doctrines  of  the  Nazarenes,  or  of  any  other  in  particular, 
of  the  various  heresies  of  which  the  Ebionsean  was 
composed. 

17.  But,  to  deal  sincerely,  I  must  confess,  that  it  is 
not  at  all  clear  to  me,  that  the  Nazarenes  are  the  sect 
intended,  in  the  beginning  of  this  section,  under  the  des- 
cription of  Ebion's  contemporaries,  from  whom  he  bor- 
rowed his  principles.     If  they  were  not,  this  section 
will  neither  afford  any  proof  of  your  opinion,  nor  be 
conclusive  on  the  other  side.     The  persons  intended 
are  not  named,  otherwise  than  by  the  pronoun  r»7<yr  : 
and  for  this  pronoun,  if  you  examine  the  original  text, 
vou  will  be  much  at  a  loss  to  find  an  antecedent.    This 


LET.  VI.  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 

pronoun,  used  as  it  is  here,  as  a  relative,  is  generally  to 
be  referred  to  the  persons  mentioned  last  before,  in  the 
author's  discourse.  But  in  all  the  preceding  part  of 
this  discourse  about  the  Ebionites,  the  Nazarenes  are 
no  where  mentioned,  except  in  that  sentence,  in  which 
they  are  joined  with  the  Ossseans  and  the  Nasaraeans, 
and  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  chapter,  where  they 
are  intended  by  this  same  pronoun,  as  the  sect  described 
in  the  chapter  next  preceding.  The  persons  last  men- 
tioned  in  the  present  discourse,  are  the  Jews  and  the 
Samaritans :  and  of  these  the  pronoun  r*1*?  may  be  red- 
ditive.  Ebion  might  be  called  their  contemporary,  if  he 
lived  before  the  Jews  entirely  lost  their  consideration  in 
the  world,  as  a  religious  sect ;  and  while  the  Samaritans 
were  yet  subsisting  as  a  distinct  sect  of  Judaism  ;  he  set 
out  from  the  same  principles  with  them,  because  he 
maintained  the  permanent  obligation  of  the  ritual  law. 
If  this  be  the  true  exposition,  of  the  two  first  clauses  of 
this  section  ;  it  is  the  purport  of  the  parenthesis,  which 
follows  them,  to  remark,  that  Ebion,  even  in  that  part 
of  his  doctrine  which  could  not  be  borrowed,  either 
from  Jews  or  Samaritans,  carried  his  desire  of  accom- 
modating to  Jewish  principles,  such  a  length,  as  to  ac- 
knowledge our  Lord,  for  nothing  more  than  a  preacher 
of  righteousness.  But  this  leads  to  no  conclusion  about 
the  faith  of  the  Nazarenes. 

18.  1  have  sometimes  thought,  that  the  pronoun  -role* 
might  be  redditive,  not  of  the  Nazarenes  singly,  but  of 
all  the  sects  which  are  mentioned  in  the  preceding  part 
of  the  narrative,  as  furnishing  the  constituent  parts  of 
Ebion's  system  ;  namely,  of  the  Jews,  the  Samaritans, 
the  Ossseans,  the  Nasarasans,  the  Nazarenes,  the  Cerin- 
thians,  and  the  Carpocratians.  With  all  these,  accord- 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  VI 

ing  to  the  confused  chronology  of  this  inaccurate  writer, 
Ebion,  as  a  junior  with  an  elder,  was  contemporary : 
and  he  set  out  from  the  same  principles  with  them  ;  in- 
asmuch as  all  his  principles  were  horrowed,  some  from 
one  of  these  sects,  some  from  another :  the  only  thing 
which  was  peculiar  to  himself  being  this ;  that  the  Juda. 
ism  which  he  practised,  was  of  the  Samaritan  cast.  In 
this  exposition  of  the  pronoun  T^WF,  the  importance  of 
the  parenthesis  must  be  to  signify,  that  the  mere  human- 
ity of  Christ  was  made  a  principle  by  Ebion,  although 
it  was  no  principle  with  those  from  whom  he  borrowed. 
It  was  indeed  a  part  of  the  Cerinthian  doctrine,  not  as  a 
principle,  but  as  a  consequence  from  principles.  The 
principles  of  the  Cerinthian  doctrine  were  the  principles 
of  the  Oriental  philosophy  :  and  the  denial  of  our  Lord's 
divinity,  and  of  his  miraculous  conception,  in  the  system 
of  Cerinthus,  was  a  consequence  of  that  cardinal  princi- 
ple of  the  Oriental  philosophy,  which  put  eternal  enmi- 
ty between  God  and  every  thing  material.  But  with 
Ebion,  the  denial  of  the  miraculous  conception,  was 
itself  a  first  principle,  independent  of  every  thing  else, 
In  this  view  of  it  again,  the  parenthesis  leads  to  no  con- 
clusion concerning  the  Nazarenes. 

19.  Which  exposition  of  the  pronoun  rvlw  is  to  be 
preferred,  is  a  point  upon  which  I  can  bring  myself  to 
no  fixed  opinion.  I  very  much  suspect,  as  I  have  al- 
ready observed,  some  considerable  corruption  of  the 
text :  for,  although  Epiphauius  is  indeed  a  wretched 
writer,  the  obscurity  of  this  sentence,  as  it  stands,  is 
more  than  mere  bad  writing  Is  apt  to  create.  But  ex- 
pound the  pronoun  as  you  please,  the  passage  will 
be  either  against  you,  or  at  the  best  nothing  to  your 
purpose. 


LET.  VI.  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 

20.  But  in  a  subsequent  sentence,  Epiphanius  speaks, 
it  seems,  « of  the  Ebionites,  as  inhabiting  the  same 
country  as  the  Nazarenes  ;"  and  adds,  "  that  agreeing 
together,  they  communicated  of  their  perverseness  to 
each  other."  It  is  true,  that  in  the  passage  which  you 
have  produced,  Epiphanius  speaks  of  the  Ebionites,  as 
the  near  neigh  hours  of  certain  Nazarenes,  and  of  a  re- 
semblance which  the  vicinity  of  situation  produced — but 
the  Nazarenes  intended,  were  they  the  Christian  Naza- 
renes, or  the  Nasar^an  Jews?  They  are  called  "  the 
lawless  Nazarenes"  [Naja^^c/  c<  are/K0i].  The  Chris- 
tian  Nazarenes,  had  nothing  in  their  conduct,  that  might 
render  them  deserving  of  this  epithet.  Their  error  was, 
that  they  feared  to  use  their  liberty,  not  that  they  abused 
it.  The  Nasaraan  Jews,  as  Jews,  were  lawless  in  a 
very  eraphatick  sense  ;  inasmuch  as  they  renounced  the 
whole  of  the  Mosaick  law,  except  that  they  circumcised, 
kept  the  Sabbath,  and  paid  some  regard  to  the  stated 
festivals.  It  was  not,  that  they  denied  the  authority  of 
Moses  :  but,  by  what  may  be  gathered  from  Epipha- 
irius's  account  of  them,  they  pretended  that  the  real 
laws  of  Moses  were  lost,  and  that  the  Pentateuch  of  the 
Jews  was,  in  all  but  the  historical  parts,  a  spurious 
work.*  Upon  these  principles,  they  held  themselves 
released  from  all  rites,  but  those  which  the  history  itself 
confirmed.  This  sect  was  found  chiefly  in  the  region  of 
Basantis  :  and  in  a  town  called  Cochaba,  in  the  same 


*  This  conjecture,  which  I  formed  from  Epipbanius's  account  of  this  sect,  I 
have  since  found  confirmed  by  Damascenus  ;  who  says,  that  they  held  the  Penta- 
teuch of  the  Jews  to  be  a  spurious  work,  and  pretended  to  have  the  original  in 
their  own  hands.  T*,-  ft  TJI?  rrttlaCltu^it  x*$*c  *»  avau  \lt»rtus  fayfjuutfxfi,  HAMK  A, 
Joan.  Uamasctn. 

19 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  VI. 

region,  Epiphanius  places  the  original  residence  of 
Ebion.  These  NasarJEans  therefore,  were  neighbours 
of  the  Ebionites,  and  they  seem  to  be  the  people  intend- 
ed in  this  passage. 

21.  It  may  perhaps  seem  strange,  that  any  resem- 
blance should  be  pretended,  between  a  Christian  sect 
which  adhered  to  the  Mosaick  law,  and  a  Jewish  sect 
which  rejected  it.     But  the  first  Ebionites,  if  Epipha- 
irius  is  to  be  trusted  in  his  description  of  them,  retained 
nothing  more  of  genuine  Judaism,  than  the  Nasarseans. 
Whatever  more  they  had  which  looked  like  Judaism,  it 
was  borrowed  from  the  Samaritan  superstition. 

22.  But  whoever  these  lawless  Nazarenes  might  be, 
their  agreement  with  the  Ebionites,  is  an  addition  of 
your  own,  founded  on  a  misinterpretation  of  the  origi- 
nal.     Epiphanius  answers  for  nothing  more,  than  some 
general  resemblance.    His   words  are  to  this  effect 
"  From  hence  he  began  to  propagate  his  pernicious  doc- 
trine ;  namely,  from  the  same  parts  which  it  hath  before 
been  said  those  lawless  Nazarenes  inhabited.    For  be- 
ing  contiguous,  he  to  them,  and  they  to  him,  each  im- 
parted to  the  other  of  his  own  particular  impiety.    And 
yet,  in  certain  things  they  differ;  but  in  evil  disposition, 
they  were  counterparts  one  to  the  other."*    What  you 
took  for  agreement  is  contiguity  of  situation ;  and  the 
resemblance  comes  at  last  to  nothing  more,  than  an  un- 
defined general  resemblance,  with  specifick  differences. 


01  ttvtfjt.it 


LET.  VI.  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 

An  entire  likeness  is  not  pretended  in  any  circumstance, 
but  the  common  depravity  of  disposition. 

23.  To  these  passages  from  the  chapter  about  the 
Ebionites,  you  subjoin  another,  from  the  7th  section  of 
the  preceding  chapter,  which  treats  of  the  Nazarenes. 
«  He  says,  that  they  were  Jews  in  all  respects,  except 
that  they  believed  in  Christ;  but  I  do  not  know  whether 
they  hold  the  miraculous  conception  or  not."*  This 
you  say,  "  amounts  to  no  more  than  a  doubt,  which  he 
afterwards  abandoned,  by  asserting  that  the  Ebionites 
held  the  same  opinion  concerning  Christ  with  the  Na- 
zarenes ;  which  opinion  he  expressly  states  to  be  their 
belief,  that  Jesus  was  a  mere  man,  and  the  son  of  Jo- 
8eph."f  I  lameh^  Sir,  that,  in  justice  to  my  own  cause, 
I  must  here  openly  complain  of  the  perverseness  of  your 
translation.  When  you  cite  an  ancient  author,  why  will 
you  make  him  say  more  or  less,  than  he  hath  said  for 
himself?  Why  not  translate  literally  ?  that  your  readers 
might  see,  how  far  your  account  of  things  is  supported 
by  express  testimony,  how  far  it  is  mere  inference  ;  and 
be  enabled  to  estimate  the  degree  of  probability,  with 
which  each  inference  is  accompanied.  " they  be- 
lieved in  Christ ;  but  I  do  not  know,  whether  they  held 
the  miraculous  conception  or  not."  Is  this  a  translation 
of  the  words  of  Epiphanius  ?  It  is  not.  It  is  an  artful 
substitution  of  an  inference  of  your  own,  from  the  au- 
thor's words,  for  the  words  of  the  author.  I,  Sir,  in 
my  Charge  had  furnished  you  with  a  more  exact  trans- 
latiou.J  Why  would  you  not  adopt  it;  unless  you 


Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  17. 
Charge  I.  sec.  10. 


148  LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  V* 

could  have  made  a  better  of  your  own,  or  could  have 
shown  its  impropriety  ?  "  Concerning  Christ,"  says 
Epiphanius,  "  1  cannot  say  with  certainty  (or,  I  am  not 
informed  to  say,  **  oil&  tiVtjr)  whether  they  too,  carried 
away  with  the  impiety  of  the  aforementioned  Cerinthus 
and  Merinthus,  think  him  a  mere  man  ;  or  affirm,  as  the 
truth  is,  that  he  was  begotten  of  Mary,  by  the  Holy 
Ghost."  To  affirm,  "  as  the  truth  is,  that  Christ  was 
begotten  of  Mary,  by  the  Holy  Ghost,"  in  Epiphanius's 
sense  of  those  words,  was  to  affirm  much  more  than  the 
miraculous  conception,  in  any  sense  in  which  an  Unita- 
rian might  affirm  it.  It  was  to  affirm  our  Lord's  divi- 
nity. Epiphanius's  confession,  that  he  had  no  ground 
to  assert,  that  the  Nazarenes  held  the  contrary  opinion, 
amounts  to  much  more  than  a  doubt.  It  amounts  to  an 
unwilling  confession  of  a  base  accuser ;  who  had  not  the 
liberality  to  absolve  in  explicit  terms,  when  he  found 
himself  unable  to  convict.  As  you  have  not  yet  produ- 
ced the  passage,  in  which  Epiphanius  asserts,  that  the 
Nazarenes  and  Ebionites  held  one  opinion  concerning 
Christ ;  your  assertion,  that  he  afterwards  abandoned 
this  doubt,  or  this  acknowledgment,  is  destitute  of  proof ; 
and  it  is  the  fair  conclusion  from  this  passage  of  Epi- 
phanius, that  the  Nazarenes  were  orthodox  in  their 
opinions  concerning  Christ.  This  I  showed  at  large 
in  my  Charge.*  You  now  attempt  to  elude  my  ar- 
gument, by  setting  up  an  unfair  and  sophisticated 
translation  of  the  passage,  upon  which  my  reasoning 
was  founded,  f 


*  Charge  I.  set.  10,  11. 

f  In  the  third  of  his  Second  Lett »      o  roe,  Dr  Priestley  has  produced   a  pas- 
sage from  another  part  of  Epiphanius's  work,  his  chapter  against  the  Arbus, 


LET.  VL  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 

94.  Were  the  identity  of  the  Nazarenes  and  Ebion- 
ites  clearly  established,  still  you  could  turn  it  to  no  ad- 
vantage, without  making  good  your  other  assertion, 
that  the  Nazarenes  were  originally  the  very  same  with 
the  Hebrew  Christians,  or  the  members  of  the  primitive 
church  of  Jerusalem.  But  of  tliis  I  cannot  find  that 
you  have  brought  a  shadow  of  proof,  except  what  you 
pretend  to  derive  from  the  testimony  of  Origen ;  which 
I  shall  consider  in  my  next  letter.  You  talk  indeed  of 
the  antiquity  of  the  Nazarenes — you  bid  me  observe, 
"  that  they  were  prior  to  Ebion,"*  of  whom  you  say* 


which  clearly  proves  that  the  Ebionites  nml  the  Nazarenes,  in  the  judgment  of 
that  writer,  were  different  sects;  in  as  much  as  Loth  arc-  separately  mentioned. 
Dr  Priestley  perhaps  may  say,  that  whatever  distinction  this  passage  may  prove, 
between  the  Nazarenes  and  the  Ebionites,  upon  the  whole  of  their  doctrine  ;  it 
clearly  proves  that  they  held  one  opinion  concerning  Christ,  which  is  sufficient 
for  his  purpose.  It  must  be  acknowledged,  that,  in  this  passage,  the  Nazarenes 
are  mentioned  together  with  the  Ebionites,  as  sects  in  error  ia  their  opinions 
about  Christ,  and  confuted  by  the  beginning  of  St  John's  Gospel ;  still  I  maintain, 
that,  in  that  part  of  his  work,  where  he  professedly  treats  of  the  heresy  of  the 
Naztrenes,  Epiphanius  expresses  a  doubt  of  their  heterodoxy  upon  the  article  of 
our  Lord's  divinity,  in  such  terms,  as  ought  to  leave  no  doubt  upon  the  mind  of 
his  reader,  of  their  orthodoxy  in  that  particular.  And  what  he  says  of  them, 
when  they  are  only  incidentally  mentioned,  ought  to  have  much  less  weight  than 
•what  he  says,  or  shows  himself  averse  to  say,  in  that  part  of  his  work,  where  the 
errors  of  that  sect  are  the  immediate  subject. 

Dr  Priestley,  allowing  Epiphanius  to  have  been  "in  some  things  weak  enough," 
exults  however,  in  the  testimony  which,  in  his  chapter  against  the  Arians,  he 
bears  against  the  Nazarenes  as  a  sect,  which,  together  with  the  Ebionites,  "held 
the  doctrine  of  the  simple  humanity  of  Christ."  And  he  says,  that  in  this  Epipha* 
nius  "stands  uncontradicted  by  any  authority  whatever."  Dr  Priestley  is  mis- 
taken ;  rashly  venturing  to  assert,  that  where  no  authority  is  known  to  him,  none 
is  extant.  Epiphanius  is  in  this  contradicted,  not  only  by  himself,  as  I  have  already 
shown,  but  by  a  writer  of  far  superior  credit;  by  Joannes  Damascenus,  who,  in 
his  book  De  HxresibiiSy  says  expressly,  that  the  Nazarenes  confessed  Jesus  to 
be  the  Son  of  God.  Damascenus  would  not  have  said  of  Dr  Priestley,  or  of  any 
one  maintaining  the  simple  humanity  of  Christ,  that  he  confesses  Josus  to  be 
the  Son  of  God. 

*  Letters  to  Dr  Horsey,  p.  18, 


LKTTKIiS  i\  KKFLY  LKT.  VI 

that  <c  he  was  himself  cotemporary  with  the  apostle 
John;"f  and  you  tell  me,  that  in  allowing  that  the 
«  Jewish  Christians  were  distinguished  by  the  name  of 

Nazarenes from  the  time  that  they  were  settled 

in  the  country  beyond  the  sea  of  Galilee,  I  carry  the 
opinions  of  the  Ebionites,  as  universally  held  by  the 
Jewish  Christians,  to  the  very  age  of  the  apostles."f 
When  you  do  me  the  honour  to  argue  from  my  con- 
cessions, I  wish,  Sir,  you  would  report  them  with  more 
fidelity  and  exactness.  I  have  allowed  no  such  anti- 
quity to  the  Nazarenes,  as  you  would  claim  for  them 
upon  the  ground  of  my  concessions.  I  said  not,  that 
the  Jewish  Christians  were  distinguished  by  the  name 
of  Nazarenes,  from  the  time  when  the  first  settlements 
were  made  beyond  the  sea  of  Galilee.  I  said,  that  the 
sect  of  the  Nazarenes  first  arose,  when  those  of  the 
Jewish  Christians,  who  pertinaciously  retained  their 
Judaism,  made  their  final  settlement  in  those  parts,  in 
consequence  of  Adrian's  severe  edicts,  by  which  the 
Jews  were  banished  from  the  ancient  site  of  Jerusalem 
and  the  adjacent  region.  Thus,  I  carried  not  the  opin- 
ions of  the  Ebionites  up  to  the  apostolick  age :  but  I 
fixed  the  rise  of  a  prior  sect,  to  an  epoch  little  earlier 
than  the  middle  of  the  second  century.  I  maintain, 
ed,  that  the  Nazarenes,  at  that  time,  separated  from 
the  main  body  of  the  Jewish  Christians,  and  appeared 
as  a  distinct  sect.  It  is  not  allowed  by  me,  that  from 
that  time,  or  in  any  age  of  the  church,  « the  whole 
body  of  the  Jewish  Christians  were  distinguished  by 
the  name  of  Nazarenes."  If  any  such  concession  may 


•  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  18.  t  lbid>  P-  2l» 


LET.  VI  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 

seem  to  be  implied  hi  the  expressions,  in  which  I  speak 
of  the  Nazarenes  in  my  Charge,  (I.  sec.  12. )  I  disa- 
TOW  it.  Appealing  against  your  assertions,  to  the  sense 
of  the  learned  and  reverend  assembly,  which  I  had  the 
honour  to  address ;  I  rather  sought  expressions,  which 
might  convey  the  general  part  of  an  opinion  common  to 
us  all,  than  such  as  might  more  precisely  mark  the  par- 
ticulars of  my  own.  That  the  name  of  Nazarene  was 
descriptive  of  a  heresy,  I  was  confident  none  in  that  as- 
sembly  doubted.  I  was  not  equally  confident  but  that 
some  might  doubt,  whether  that  heresy,  from  the  time 
the  name  was  used,  embraced  not  the  main  body  of  the 
Jewish  Christians.  Whatever  doubts  might  subsist 
about  the  extent,  1  was  confident  there  could  be  but 
one  opinion,  in  that  assembly,  about  the  chronology  of 
the  name.  But  Ebion,  you  say,  was  contemporary  with 
St  John.  To  that  circumstance,  when  it  is  proved,  I 
shall  be  disposed  to  give  great  attention.  I  believe  the 
opinion  hath  no  foundation,  but  in  the  foolish  story  told 
by  Epiphauius,  of  St  John  and  Ebion  in  the  bath.  The 
same  is  told  by  other  writers,  of  St  John  and  Cerinthus  ; 
and  it  hath  altogether  the  air  of  fiction.  But,  suppose  I 
were  to  allow  the  highest  antiquity  to  these  Nazarenes  ; 
suppose  that,  with  you,  I  were  to  place  them  in  the 
apostolick  age  ;  would  this  oblige  me  to  allow,  that  they 
were  the  true  members  of  the  primitive  church  ?  Had 
not  the  apostolick  age  its  schisms  and  its  heresies? 
The  Simonians,  the  Nicolaitans,  the  Cerinthians  :  were 
not  all  these  contemporary  with  the  apostles  ?  Were 
they  therefore  sound  members  of  the  church  of  Jerusa- 
lem? Be  pleased,  Sir,  to  consider  this  question. 

T  am,  &c. 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  £ET.  Vh 

POSTSCRIPT. 


1.  Eusebius,  in  his  Ecclesiastical  TJieology,  speaks 
as  if  he  thought  the  name  Ebionites  had  been  imposed 
by  the  apostles  themselves,  upon  those  who  disowned 
our  Lord's  divinity  ;  which  necessarily  implies,  that,  in 
his  opinion,  the  sect  and  the  name  were  of  the  apostolick 
age.  "  Our  Saviour's  own  first  heralds,"  says  Eusebius, 
named  those  Ebionites  --  who  acknowledged 
not  the  Godhead  of  the  Son."*  Our  Saviour's  own  first 
heralds,  must  be  the  preachers,  it  should  seem,  of  his 
own  appointment  ;  namely,  the  apostles  :  and  that  they 
are  the  persons  intended,  is  the  more  probable,  for  the 
distinction  which  seems  to  be  made  between  these  first 
"heralds  and  Ecclesiastical  fathers,  who  are  afterwards 
mentioned.  Strenuously  as  you  assert  the  antiquity  of 
the  Ebionites,  you  have  no  where,  that  I  remember,  al- 
leged this  testimony.  You  were  aware  perhaps,  that 
were  it  good  for  the  antiquity  of  the  sect,  it  would  be 
equally  good  for  the  reason  and  origin  of  the  name  :  for 
my  own  part,  I  am  not  inclined  to  avail  myself  of  it  ;  I 
consider  it  as  a  hasty  assertion  of  a  writer,  over  zealous 
to  overwhelm  his  adversary  by  authorities  :  I  mention 
it  only,  to  protest  against  any  use,  which  you  may  here- 
after be  disposed  to  make  of  it,  in  a  dearth  of  proof  of 
Ebion's  antiquity.  Should  you  urge  me  with  any  part 
of  this  testimony,  I  shall  have  a  right  to  insist,  that 


ltt  ft 

CMlr;)t5tXKv7«?  TK?   fl/A  fJLtV   8&V   Afi>CV/*C     tdtvctt,    XA?   TK   oW^JJ    TO   ffCfft*  ft* 

,  T;»V  ft  TO  UK  Ziflrii*.  /wi  «*T«>7*?.    Ecc.  Theol.  lib.  i.  c.  14. 


LET.  VI.  TO  Dll  PRIESTLEY. 

you  accept  the  whole — Should  you  produce  it  in  proof, 
that  an  Unitarian  sect  existed  in  the  apostolick  age ; 
you  will  be  obliged  to  allow,  that  it  is  equally  a  proof, 
that  the  Unitarian  doctrine  was  expressly  condemned 
by  the  apostles.  It  will  be  no  concern  of  mine,  to 
disprove  the  antiquity  of  Ebion,  however  I  may  dis- 
believe it,  so  long  as  the  very  ground  of  his  claim  seals 
bis  condemnation — so  long  as  his  pretentious  to  an 
early  existence,  rest  on  a  presumption,  that  he  had  the 
honour  to  be  the  object  of  apostolical  censure. 

2.  Upon  the  story  of  St  John  and  the  Hseresiarch, 
in  the  publick  baths  at  Ephesus,  I  passed  judgment 
hastily,  when  I  spake  of  it  as  a  foolish  story,  carry- 
ing altogether  the  air  of  fiction.  I  ought  to  have  re- 
collected,  that  Iren&us*  vouches  strongly  for  so  much 
of  it  as  he  relates.  He  even  cites  the  testimony  of 
Polycarp,  in  terms  which  may  be  understood  to  imply, 
that  he  was  himself  one  of  many,  still  living  when  he 
wrote,  who  had  heard  the  story  from  the  mouth  of 
Polycarp.  The  testimony  of  Ireu^us  is  hardly  to  be 
disbelieved;  the  testimony  of  Polycarp  is  irresistible. 
But  the  story,  which  Irenaeus  relates  after  Polycarp, 
he  relates  of  St  John  and  Cerinthus.  It  makes  no- 
thing  therefore  for  the  antiquity  of  Ebion.  As  re- 
lated of  him,  with  the  addition  of  many  improbable 
circumstances  not  mentioned  by  Iren^us,  it  may  be 
deemed  a  fiction.f 


*  Lib.  iii.  3. 

t  Dr  Priestley,  in  the  third  of  his  Second  Letters  to  me,  to  corroborate  the 
testimony  of  Epiphanius,  alleges  that  of  Jerome  ;  who  he  says,  "  mentions  the 
Ebionites,  not  only  as  a  sect,  but  a  flourishing  sect,  in  the  time  of  St  John."  But 
Jerome  makes  no  such  mention  of  the  Ebionites.  He  says,  that  St  John  wrote  h*9 

20 


LETTEUS  IN  REPLY  LET.  VII 


LETTER  SEVENTH. 

Continuation  of  Reply  to  Dr  Priestley's  Second — Of 
the  argument  from  Origen. — That  it  rests  on  two 
passages  in  the  books  against  Celsus.  The  first 
misinterpreted  by  Dr  Priestley  in  a  very  important 
point.— No  argument  to  be  drawn  from  the  two 
passages  in  connexion. — Origen  convicted  of  two 
false  assertions  in  the  first  passage. — The  opinions 
of  the  first  age,  not  to  be  concluded  from  the  opin- 
ions of  Origen. 

DEAR  SIR, 

IN  failure  of  all  other  proof  of  your  supposed  identity 
of  the  Ebionites  and  Nazarenes,  you  still  appeal  to  the 
testimony  of  Origen.  You  have  however,  given  a  new 
turn  to  this  part  of  your  argument.  Your  appeal  was 
originally*  to  a  pretended  acknowledgment  of  Origen's, 
that  the  Nazarenes  and  the  Ebionites  were  the  same 
people.  But  being  made  sensible,!  how  difficult  it  must 
be  to  find  an  acknowledgment  of  this  identity,  in  a 


Gospel  in  opposition  to  Cerinthus,  and  other  hereticks,  and 'principally  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Ebionites  (not  then  flourishing,  but)  tune  conturgens,  then  making 
its  first  appearance.  This  I  readily  allow ;  for  what  was  afterwai-ds  the  doctrine 
of  the  Ebionites,  was  first  propagated  by  the  Cerinthian  Gnosticks. 

*  Hist,  of  Corrup.  vol.  i.  p.  7. 

t  Se«  the  Monthly  Review  for  Juae,  1783,  and  for  September,  1785. 


LET.  MI.  TO  DR.  PRIESTLEY. 

writer  who  never  once  names  the  Nazarenes  ;  you  aban- 
don that  project,  and  in  the  passages  which  were  at  first 
cited  to  establish  this  supposed  identity,  you  have  at 
last  the  good  fortune  to  discover  an  immediate  proof  of 
your  main  proposition,  that  the  primitive  faith  of  the 
Hebrew  church  was  Unitarian.  Your  method  is,  to 
trace  from  Origen  the  faith  of  the  Jewish  Christians  in 
his  age,  and  from  their  faith,  to  infer  that  of  their  an- 
cestors. 

2.  The  strength  of  this  argument,  lies  in  two  passa- 
ges in  the  books  against  Celsus  ;  which  are  very  distant 
from  each  other :  for  the  one  is  in  the  second,  the  other 
in  the  fifth  book  ;  and  yet  they  must  be  taken  in  con- 
nexion,  to  give  any  colour  to  your  reasoning.  You  set 
it  off  indeed  to  great  advantage,  when,  appealing  to  the 
first  of  these  passages,  you  say,  that  k  appears,  and  that 
I  deny  not  that  it  appears,  "  that  the  unbelieving  Jews 
called  all  those  of  their  race,  who  were  Christians,  by 
the  name  of  Ebionites,  in  the  time  of  Origen  ;"  and  that 
"  Origen's  own  words  are  too  express,  to  admit  any 
doubt  of  this."*  Truly,  Sir,  I  was  not  likely  to  deny 
a  groundless  assertion,  before  it  was  made  by  my  anta- 
gonist ;  and  you  now  make  it  for  the  first  time  ;  at  least 
I  remember  nothing  like  it  in  your  former  publications. 
I  believe  I  was  myself  the  first  to  bring  forward  this 
passage  from  the  second  book  against  Celsus.  In  your 
history,  you  have  appealed  to  Origeu's  acknowledg- 
ment, of  the  identity  of  the  Ebionites  and  Nazarenes, 
without  any  reference  to  particular  passages.  I  produ- 


*  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  11 


156  LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  VII. 

ced  this  passage,  as  of  all  that  I  could  recollect,  the 
most  for  your  purpose.*  I  produced  it  in  order  to 
show,  that  when  it  is  rightly  understood,  it  is  nothing 
to  your  purpose :  for,  although  the  Christians  of  the 
circumcision,  in  general,  are  in  this  passage  called 
Ebionites,  it  is  according  to  a  peculiar  definition  of  the 
word,  which  includes  not  what  by  other  writers,  always, 
and  by  Origen  himself  in  other  places,  is  included  in 
the  notion  of  the  Ebion^an  doctrine ;  namely,  a  denial 
of  our  Lord's  divinity.  The  Nazarenes  therefore,  might 
be  Ebionites,  in  the  sense  which  is  here  given  to  that 
word,  although  they  doubted  not  our  Lord's  divinity, 
and  were  quite  another  set  of  people  than  the  proper 
Ebionites.  I  acknowledge  therefore,  that  in  this  pas- 
sage, "  Origen  says  of  the  Jewish  Christians  of  his 
own  time,  that  they  were  Ebionites."t  These  were  my 
very  words.  But  I  said  not,  that  they  were  the  unbe- 
lieving Jews,  who  imposed  this  name  upon  the  convert- 
ed :  and  now  that  you  have  been  pleased  to  say  it  for 
me,  I  deny  it ;  and  I  maintain^  that  Origeu's  words  are 
too  express  to  admit  a  doubt,  that  you  have  mistaken 
his  meaning.  The  entire  passage  of  Origenf  is  to  this 

effect "  they  of  the  Jews  who  believe  in  Christ, 

have  not  abandoned  the  law  of  their  ancestors  ;  for  they 
live  according  to  it ;  bearing  a  name,  which  corres- 
ponds with  the  poor  expectations  which  the  law  holds 


*  Charge  I.  sec.  15. 
f  Ibid. 

^  "O;  CLTTO  Jxfauav  a?  "[mmv  Trtwjsvltt   «  x.:tl£Kt\ot7raurt   Toy  TraflpKt  vo/uoy  @JKsrt 

t^  luff  etiflov,  rraw/usi  T»C  x*7«c  THV  txfoxw  7f]ce%tktt  TX  vtfty  ytytwfttvoi.  f.£iav  tt 
^  £  5r7«£c?  Trap*  Ixfojois  xstAs/7at/,  xou^  E&tcvouct  %pxfAaOi?>iytv  01  CLTTQ  IXJSUK'I  TCV  Iwsy 
Origen  in  Celsum,  p.  56.  edit.  Spencer. 


LET.  rZT.  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY 

out.*  For  a  beggar  is  called  among  the  Jews,  (that 
is,  in  the  Hebrew  language,)  Ebion —  And  they  of  the 
Jews  who  have  received  Jesus  as  the  Christ,  go  by  the 
name  of  Ebion#:ans."  The  converted  Jews  went,  it  is 
said,  by  this  name;  but  where  have  you  found  that 
the  unbelieving  Jews  imposed  it  ?  Not  in  Origen,  Sir ; 
but  in  the  Latin  translation  of  Gelenius.  Attend  to  the 
reasons  assigned  by  Origen  for  the  name,  and  you  can- 
not but  perceive,  that  it  could  never  be  imposed  by 
Jews — it  was  given  in  contempt :  the  objects  of  the 
contempt  were  observers  of  the  Mosaick  law  ;  and  the 
cause  of  the  contempt  was,  the  mean  opinion  which  was 
entertained,  by  those  who  gave  the  name,  of  expecta- 
tions built  on  legal  righteousness.  Could  these,  Sir,  be 
the  sentiments  of  unconverted  Jews  ? 

3.  It  would  have  been  a  circumstance  of  much  ad- 
vantage to  your  argument,  which  I  doubt  not  you  well 
understand,  that  the  unconverted  Jews  should  have  been 
the  coiners  of  the  name :  because  it  would  have  follow- 
ed, that  the  name  was  originally  common  to  the  whole 
body  of  the  Hebrew  Christians.  Then  since  Origen, 
in  the  other  passage  in  the  fifth  book,  makes,  as  you 
observe,  only  two  sorts  of  Ebionites,  the  one  believing, 
the  other  denying  the  miraculous  conception,  the  de- 
duction might  have  seemed  not  unfair,  that  Origen 
knew  of  no  Hebrew  Christians  that  were  not  Uni- 
tarians. 

4?.  You  will  say,  perhaps,  that  since  we  have  Ori- 
gen's  testimony  for  the  universality  of  the  name,  the  ar- 
gument from  the  two  passages,  taken  in  connexion,  may 


*  Literally,  being  named  after  the  poverty  of  the  few  in  expectation, 


f  38  LETTERS    N  REPLY  LET.  V1L 

still  proceed.  If  1  could  admit  the  universality  of  the 
name  upon  Origeu's  testimony,  I  should  insist,  that  his 
description  of  the  twofold  Ebionites,  in  the  fifth  book,  is 
not  exactly  what  you  take  it  to  be.  I  should  remark, 
that  the  words,  fyw&>{  j/jw,  "  in  like  manner  as  we  do," 
make  an  important  branch  of  the  character  of  the  milder 
sort '<  these,"  says  he,  "  are  the  double  Ebion- 
ites ;  who  either  confess  Jesus  born  of  a  virgin,  in  like 
manner  as  we  do,  or  think  he  was  not  born  in  that  man- 
ner, but  like  other  men."*  I  should  maintain,  that  the 
words  "  in  like  manner  as  we  do,"  are  equivalent  to  the 
words  "  as  the  truth  is,"  in  Epiphanius's  description 
of  that  belief  in  the  miraculous  conception,  which  he 
says  the  Nazarenes,  for  aught  he  knew  to  the  contrary, 
might  hold  ;  and  I  should  contend,  that  Origen  affirms, 
but  with  less  equivocation,  of  these  better  Ebionites, 
what  Epiphanius  reluctantly  confesses  of  the  Naza- 
renes, that  they  held  the  Catholick  doctrine  concerning 
the  nature  of  our  Lord.  And  in  this  manner,  the  words 
of  Origen  seem  to  have  been  understood,  both  by  Gro- 
tius  and  Vossius  ;  when  they  allow,  that  the  Nazarenes, 
though  orthodox  in  this  part  of  their  faith,  are  included, 
in  this  passage  of  Origen's  fifth  book,  in  the  appellation 
of  Ebionites.  I  should  contend,  that  if  the  former  pas- 
sage, proves  the  name  general  for  the  whole  body  of 
the  Hebrew  Christians,  the  latter  equally  proves,  that 
the  notion  of  an  Unitarian  was  not  necessarily  included 


*  EC«T«V  A  TMC  wau^  TOV  IxffBV  eWoJf^o^Woi,  «f  Tr&ea.  <n/?o  Xysutvot  ttv&t 
irn  ft  [KX]A  TOV  IxJcuav  voftov,  u>;  T&  larfauax  TTM&H,  fiusv  *3"eXov?»r  wot  ft  twit  cf 


a;  T«f   Xci^V?  *y/M»/TK«'    Tl    T«T»  £¥«  9).*MyUCC    TO/J 

y,  272. 


LET.  V2L  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 

in  it.  The  connexion  therefore  of  these  two  passages, 
makes  little  for  your  purpose  ;  since  the  second  serves 
but  to  overthrow  the  argument,  which  might  be  built 
upon  the  first.  It  justifies  what  I  advanced  in  my 
Charge,  upon  a  presumption  that  the  first,  singly,  would 
be  made  the  foundation  of  the  argument  from  Origen ; 
that  the  word  Ebionite,  in  Origen's  time,  or  at  least  in 
his  use  of  it,  had  outgrown  its  original  meaning. 

5.  In  this  manner,  I  should  combat  your  argument 
from  these  two  passages  ;  were  it  not  that  I  think  too 
lightly  of  the  testimony  of  Origen,  in  what  relates  to  the 
Hebrew  Christians,  to  be  solicitous  to  turn  it  to  my  own 
advantage.  Let  his  words  be  taken  as  you  understand 
them  ;  and  so  far  as  the  faith  of  the  Hebrew  Christians 
of  his  own  time  is  in  question,  let  him  appear  as  an  evi- 
dence on  your  side — 1  shall  take,  what  you  may  thiuk 
a  bold  step ;  I  shall  tax  the  veracity  of  your  witness — 
of  this  Origen  :  I  shall  tell  you,  that  whatever  may  be 
the  general  credit  of  his  character,  yet  in  this  business, 
the  particulars  of  his  deposition  are  to  be  little  regard- 
ed, when  he  sets  out  with  the  allegation  of  a  notorious 
falsehood.  He  alleges  of  the  Hebrew  Christians  in 
general,  that  they  had  not  renounced  the  Mosaick  law. 
The  assertion  served  him  for  an  answer,  to  the  invec- 
tive which  Celsus  had  put  in  the  mouth  of  a  Jew, 
against  the  converted  Jews,  as  deserters  of  the  laws  and 
customs  of  their  ancestors.  The  answer  was  not  the 
worse  for  wanting  truth,  if  his  heathen  antagonist  was 
not  sufficiently  informed,  in  the  true  distinctions  of 
Christian  sects,  to  detect  the  falsehood — But  in  all  the 
time  which  he  spent  in  Palestine,  had  Origen  never  con- 
versed with  Hebrew  Christians  of  another  sort?  Had  he 
met  with  no  Christians  of  Hebrew  families,  of  the  church 


400  LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  VII. 

of  Jerusalem  ?  Was  the  Mosaick  law  observed,  was 
it  tolerated,  in  Origen's  days,  in  the  church  of  Jerusa- 
lem, when  that  church  was  under  the  government  of 
bishops  of  the  uncircumcision  ?  The  fact  is,  that  after 
the  demolition  of  Jerusalem  by  Adrian,  the  majority  of 
the  Hebrew  Christians,  who  must  have  passed  for  Jews 
with  the  Roman  magistrates,  had  they  continued  to 
adhere  to  the  Mosaick  law,  which  to  this  time  they  had 
observed  more  from  habit  than  from  any  principle  of 
conscience,  made  no  scruple  to  renounce  it,  that  they 
might  be  qualified  to  partake  in  the  valuable  privileges 
of  the  jElian  colony,  from  which  Jews  were  excluded. 
Having  thus  divested  themselves  of  the  form  of  Judaism, 
•which  to  that  time  they  had  born,  they  removed  from 
Pella  and  other  towns  to  which  they  had  retired,  and 
settled  in  great  numbers  at  JElia.  The  few,  who  re- 
tained a  superstitious  veneration  for  their  law,  remained 
in  the  north  of  Galilee,  where  they  were  joined  perhaps 
by  new  fugitives  of  the  same  weak  character,  from  Pa- 
lestine. And  this  was  the  beginning  of  the  sect  of  the 
Nazarenes.  But  from  this  time,  whatever  Origen  may 
pretend,  to  serve  a  purpose,  the  majority  of  the  Hebrew 
Christians  forsook  their  law,  and  lived  in  communion 
with  the  Gentile  bishops,  of  the  new  modelled  church 
of  Jerusalem  ;  for  the  name  was  retained,  though  Jeru- 
salem was  no  more,  and  the  seat  of  the  bishop  was  at 
AH  this  I  affirm  with  the  less  hesitation,  being 


*  See  Dr  Priestley's  objections  to  this  representation  of  facts,  in  the  fourth  of 
his  second  Letters  to  me,  ami  my  Defence,  in  luy  Remarks  oa  his  second  Letters, 
p.  2.  c.  ii. 


LET.  VII.  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 

supported  by  the  authority  of  Mosheim  ;*  from  whom 
indeed  I  first  learnt  to  rate  the  testimony  of  Origen, 
in  this  particular  question,  at  its  true  value.f 

6.  It  is  in  defiance  therefore  of  the  fact,  and  I  fear  of 
his  own  knowledge  of  the  fact,  that  Origen  affirms  of  tha 
Hebrew  Christians  in  general,  that  they  lived  in  the 
observance  of  the  Mosaick  law  :  and  it  must  be  equally 
in  defiance  of  the  fact,  that  he  affirms,  that  they  were 
all  in  general  called  Ebiouitcs  :  for  he  pretends  not  that 
this  name  generally  belonged  to  them,  otherwise  than 
as  Judaizers.  His  expressions  in  the  passage  in  the 
fifth  book,  seem  to  imply  a  retractation  of  both  these 
assertions  ;  for  there,  he  speaks  only  of  some,  who,  with 
the  profession  of  Christianity,  retained  the  practice  of 
Judaism.  These  some,  he  says,  were  the  Ebionites  ; 
and,  what  is  more,  he  describes  these  Ebionites,  not 
indeed  as  universally  Unitarians,  but  as  despicable 
wretched  here  ticks,  whose  extravagancies  could  bring 
no  disgrace  upon  the  Christian  church,  of  which  they 
were  no  part.  Were  the  Hebrew  Christians,  living  in 
communion  with  the  bishop  of  Jerusalem,  in  the  days  of 
Origen,  no  part  of  the  true  church  of  Christ  ?  If  they 
were  a  part  of  it,  in  Origen's  own  judgment  they  were 
no  Ebionites.  "  I  wonld  not  believe  this  witness  upon 
his  oath,"  says  Mosheim?  "  vending,  as  he  manifestly 
does,  such  flimsy  lies.^f 


*  De  rebus  Christianorura  ante  Constantinum.    Sxc.  ii.  sec.  38.  Note.* 

f  See  his  Dissertation  about  Ebion,  which  is  the  tenth  in  order  in  the  first  VO- 

lume  of  a  Collection,  entitled,  Distertationet  ad  flistoriam  EccletiasUcam  per» 

tinentea. 

$  Ego  huic  testi,  etianui  jarato,  qui  tarn  manifesto   fumos  vemlit,  me   non 

Crediturum   ees«   confirmo.    Mosheim  de  Ebione.  src.  x,    See  the  Tecaeit     of 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  Til. 

7.  I  may  now,  Sir,  without  damage  to  my  cause, 
freely  make  you  a  present  of  the  whole  testimony  of 
Origen,  not  only  as  it  is  given  by  him,  but  as  it  is  inter- 
preted by  you.     As  it  is  given  by  him,  it  states,  that  the 
Hebrew  Christians  in  his  time,  were  generally  Judaizers: 
as  interpreted  by  you,  it  states,  that  in  his  time,  they 
were  generally  Unitarian.     But  if  this  testimony  were 
more  unexceptionable  than  it  is,  and  this  sense  of  the 
testimony  less  doubtful,  what  evidence  would  it  afford, 
that  the  first  Hebrew  Christians  were  Unitarians  in  the 
time  of  the  apostles  ? 

8.  You  pretend  not,  that  this  would  follow  by  neces- 
sary consequence  ;  but  you  say,  « if  the  Jewish  Chris, 
tians  were  universally  Ebionites  in  the  time  of  Origen, 
the  probability  is,  that  they  were  very  generally  so,  in 
the  time  of  the  apostles."*     Whence  should  this  pro- 
bability arise  ?  From  this  general  maxim,  it  seems :  that 
«  whole  bodies  of  men,  do  not  soon  change  their  opin- 
ion."! You  are  indeed,  Sir,  the  very  last  person,  who 
might  have  been  expected  to  form  conclusions  upon  an 
historical  question,  from  mere  theory,  in  defiance  of  the 
experience  of  mankind — in  defiance  of  the  experience  of 
our  own  country  and  our  own  times.    How  long  is  it, 
since  the  whole  body  of  dissenters  in  this  kingdom,  (the 
single  sect  of  the  Quakers  excepted,)  took  their  stand- 
ard of  orthodoxy  from  the  opinions  of  Calvin  ?  Where 
shall  we  now  find  a  dissenter,  except  perhaps  among 


Origen  defended  by  Dr  Priestley,  and  further  impugned  by  me,  in  the  fourth  ef 
Dr  Priestley's  second  Letters  to  me,  and  iu  my  Remarks  on  the  second  Letters, 
p.  2.  c.  i. 

•  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  21. 

t  IWd. 


LET.  VII.  TO  UR  PRIESTLEY.  163 

the  dregs  of  Methodism,  who  would  not  think  it  au  af- 
front to  be  taken  for  a  Calvinist  ?* 

9.  1  now,  Sir,  take  my  leave  of  your  argument  from 
the  Nazarenes.  I  trust  I  have  shown,  that,  although  it 
is  the  chief  strength  of  your  cause,  it  was  well  entitled 
to  a  place  among  my  specimens  of  insufficient  proof,  of 
which  it  was  the  fourth  in  order.  Before  I  proceed  to 
examine  other  parts  of  the  evidence,  by  which  you  think 
to  establish  the  high  antiquity  of  the  Unitarian  doctrine ; 
give  me  leave  to  remind  you,  that,  although  you  have 
overlooked  it,  a  very  positive  proof  is  at  this  day  extant 
in  the  world ;  that  the  divinity  of  Christ  was  the  belief 
of  the  very  first  Christians.  This  shall  be  the  subject 
of  my  next  letter. 

I  am,  &e. 


POSTSCRIPT. 

A  learned  correspondent  of  mine,  an  eminent  divine  of 
the  church  of  Scotland,  a  Calvinist,f  and  by  consequence, 
a  serious  and  devout  believer  in  the  Catholick  doctrine 
of  the  Trinity;  hath  remarked  to  me,  that  your  assertion, 
that  the  Nazarenes  were  the  first  Hebrew  Christians, 
might  have  had  some  colour  given  to  it,  from  the  history 
of  the  accusation  of  St  Paul  before  Felix,  in  the  Acts  of 
the  Apostles.  St  Paul  was  charged  upon  that  occasion, 
by  Turtullus  the  orator,  as  he  is  called,  as  a  ringleader 


*  Of  the  numbers  of  the  Calvinists  among  the  dissenters  of  the  present  dar, 
seethe  fourth  of  Dr  Priestley's  second  Letters,  and  my  Remarks,  p.  1.  c.  iv. 

f  The  persoa  meant,  was  my  maternal  uncle,  the  Rev.  Robert  Hamilton,  D.D. 
maujr  years  professor  of  divinity  in  the  college  of  Edinburgh. 


LL/ITER3  IN  RKPLY  LET.  VlL 

"  of  the  sect  of  the  JVazarenes :"  whence  it  might  have 
been  argued,  that  this  was  the  name,  which  Christians 
in  general  at  that  time  bore.    This  argument,  I  think, 
is  far  more  specious,  than  any  you  have  produced  for 
yourself ;  but  it  is  only  an  instance,  by  which  it  may  be 
seen  how  easy  it  is,  to  frame  arguments,  in  that  oblique 
kind  in  which  you  so  much  delight,  which  may  give  a 
false  colouring  to  things,  and  impose  upon  the  Ignorant 
or  heedless.     It  is  for  this  purpose,  1  believe,  that  it  is 
produced  by  my  learned  and  much  honoured  correspon- 
dent ;  not  as  a  proof  which,  had  it  been  set  up  by  you, 
would  have  convinced,  or  even  staggered,  either  him  or 
me  ;  it  only  proves,  that  in  the  infancy  of  Christianity, 
Christians,  among  the  unbelieving  Jews,  who  consider- 
ed  them  as  an  heretical  sect  in  their  own  religion,  went 
by  the  name  of  Nazarenes,  as  followers  of  the  Naza- 
rene ;  for  that  was  the  appellation  which,  in  contempt, 
they  gave  our  Lord  himself,  from  the  obscure  village  to 
which  his  family  belonged.     But  while  the  Christians 
were  called  Nazarenes  by  the  unbelieving  Jews,  they 
were  called  among  themselves  TJie  Brethren,  They  of 
the  Faith9  and  The  Faith;  till  at  length,  when  they 
became  more  numerous,  and  received  a  large  accession 
of  converts  from  the  Gentiles,  Christians  became  the 
general  name ;  and  the  Hebrew  Christians,  who  still 
perhaps  bore  the  name  of  Nazarenes  among  the  Jews, 
were  distinguished  among  Christians  by  the  names  of 
The  Hebrews,  and  They  of  the  Circumcision.    1  still 
therefore  abide  by  my  assertion,  that  the  name  of  Naza- 
rene  was  never  heard  of  in  the  church,  that  is,  among 
Christians  themselves,  as  descriptive  of  a  sect,  (as  a 
general  name  for  the  whole  fraternity  of  believers,  it 
was  never  heard  of  in  the  church  at  all,)  but  as  descrip- 


LET.  nr.  TO  DH  PRIESTLEY. 

tive  of  a  sect,  it  was  never  heard  of  before  the  final  de- 
struction of  Jerusalem  by  Adrian  ;  when  it  became  the 
specifick  name  of  the  Judaizers,  who  at  that  time  sepa- 
rated from  the  church  of  Jerusalem,  and  settled  in  the 
north  of  Galilee.  The  name  was  taken  from  the  coun- 
try in  which  they  settled  ;  but  it  seems  to  have  been 
given  in  contempt,  and  not  without  allusion  to  the  earlier 
application  of  it,  by  the  Jews,  to  the  Christians  in  gene- 
ral :  the  intent  of  it  was,  to  signify  that  these  Judaizers, 
who  were  for  imposing  the  yoke  of  the  Mosaick  law 
upon  the  brethren  of  the  uncircumcision,  knew  so  little 
of  the  spirit  of  the  gospel,  that  they  were  only  to  be 
considered  as  a  sect  of  Jews  ;  and  were  undeserving  of 
any  more  honourable  name,  than  that  by  which  the  un- 
believing Jews,  of  the  apostolick  age,  had  been  accus- 
tomed to  express  their  contempt  for  the  then  new  and 
little  family  of  Christ;  that  they  could  not  be  more 
properly  described,  than  as  heretical  Jews,  living  in  the 
poorest  village  of  fhe  poorest  province. 


166  LBTTERS  rif  REPLY  LET. 


LETTER  EIGHTH. 

*3  positive  proof  still  extant,  that  our  Lord's  divinity 
was  the  belief  of  the  very  first  Christians. — The 
Epistle  of  St  Barnabas  not  the  work  of  an  apostle, 
tut  a  production  of  the  apostolick  age. — Cited  as  such 
by  Dr  Priestley. — The  author  a  Christian  of  the  He- 
brews.— A  believer  in  our  Lord's  divinity. —  Writes 
to  Christians  of  the  Hebrews  concurring  in  the  same 
belief. 

DEAR  SIR. 

I  AM  to  produce  a  positive  proof,  that  the  divinity 
of  our  Lord  was  the  belief  of  the  very  first  Christians. 
Give  me  leave  then  to  ask  your  opinion  of  that  book, 
which  hath  been  current  in  the  church  from  the  very 
first  ages,  under  the  title  of  The  Epistle  of  St  Barnabas. 
It  is  quoted,  you  know,  by  Clemens  Alexandrinus,  not 
to  mention  later  writers,  as  the  composition  of  Barnabas 
the  apostle.  Take  no  alarm,  Sir — I  shall  not  claim  a 
place  for  it  in  the  canon — I  shall  not  contend,  that  any 
apostle  was  its  author — I  am  well  persuaded  of  the 
contrary :  but  the  reasons  which  persuade  me,  are  such 
as  ought  to  have  no  weight  with  you,  if  you  will  be  true 
to  your  own  principles.  The  style  is  indeed  embarras- 
sed and  undignified ;  the  reasoning  is  often  unnatural 
and  weak ;  texts  of  the  Old  Testament,  are  drawn  by 
violence  to  allegorical  senses,  which  are  inadmissible : 


LET.  rill  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 

as  when  Moses,  encouraging  the  Israelites  to  take  pos- 
session of  the  promised  land,  is  supposed  to  exhort  the 
Jews  to  embrace  the  Christian  religion  ;  and  in  the 
description  of  Canaan,  as  a  land  flowing  with  milk  and 
honey,  the  land  is  our  Saviour's  body ;  the  milk  and 
honey,  are  the  doctrines  and  promises  of  the  gospel— 
the  attempt  to  find  evangelical  types  in  the  Jewish 
rites,  is  injudiciously  conducted  ;  the  essential  part  of  a 
rite,  which  was  of  divine  appointment,  is  often  superfi- 
cially treated ;  and  the  supposed  sense  of  subordinate 
ceremonies,  and  those  very  often  of  human  institution 
and  of  no  significance,  is  pursued  with  a  trifling  exact- 
ness  :  thus,  in  the  exposition  of  the  red  heifer,  and  in 
that  of  the  scape  goat,  the  stress  is  principally  laid  upon 
circumstances,  about  which  the  divine  law  is  silent. 
But  what  may  least  of  all  be  reconciled  with  (lie  apos- 
tolick  spirit,  is  that  strange  cabalistick  process,  by 
which  the  name  of  Jesus,  and  the  cross,  are  drawn  from 
the  number  of  Abraham's  armed  domesticks ;  and  the 
great  credit  which  the  author  gives  himself  for  such  dis- 
coveries. My  notion  of  inspiration,  will  not  allow  me 
to  believe,  that  an  inspired  apostle  could  be  the  writer 
of  such  a  book,  and  be  vain  of  having  written  it — your 
principles,  leave  you  at  liberty  to  be  less  scrupulous — 
you,  who  have  convicted  St  Paul  of  reasoning  to  preca- 
rious conclusions,*  may  easily  admit,  that  St  Barnabas, 
the  companion  of  St  Paul,  might  reason  from  false 
premises — you,  who  think  that  one  apostle  "  has  strain- 
ed his  imagination  very  much/?f  to  find  analogies  be- 


*  Hist,  of  Corrup.  vol.  ji.  p.  370, 
|  Ibid,  vol.  i.  p.  24. 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  VIII 

tween  the  rites  of  Judaism,  and  something  in  Christian, 
ity,  may  easily  suppose,  that  another  apostle,  from  the 
same  motive,  a  desire  of  reconciling  the  Jews  to  Chris- 
tianity— may  have  strained  much  more,  to  make  the 
analogy  much  more  complete.  I  can  therefore  see  no 
reason,  why  you  should  not  receive  what  is  called  the 
Epistle  of  St  Barnabas,  extravagant  and  nonsensical  a* 
it  is  in  many  parts,  for  the  genuine  work  of  Barnabas 
the  apostle ;  but  this  is  much  more  than  I  desire,  and 
much  more  than  is  necessary  to  my  argument.  *  I  sup. 
pose,  however,  that  you  will  allow,  what  all  allow,  that 
the  book  is  a  production  of  the  apostolick  age  :  in  the 
fifth  section  of  your  history  of  the  doctrine  of  atonement, 
you  quote  it  among  the  writings  of  the  apostolick  fath- 
ers— I  think  it  fair  to  remind  you  of  this  circumstance, 
lest  you  should  hastily  advance  a  contrary  opinion, 
when  you  find  the  testimony  of  this  writer  turned  against 
you. 

2.  You  allow  him  a  place,  then,  among  the  fathers 
of  the  apostolick  age  :  and  will  you  not  allow,  that  he 
was  a  believer  in  our  Lord's  divinity  ?  I  will  not  take 
upon  me,  Sir,  to  answer  this  question  for  you ;  but  I 
will  take  upon  me  to  say,  that  whoever  denies  it,  must 
deny  it  to  his  own  shame.  "  The  Lord,"  says  Barnabas, 
«  submitted  to  suffer  for  our  soul,  although  he  be  THE 
LORD  OF  THE  WHOLE  EARTH,  unto  whom  he  said,  thfi 


*  Modica  sunt,  quse  in  eju3  gratiam,  nee  (ut  puto)  facile  recusanda:  ut  uimi- 
rnm,  si  non  ipsis  saltern  annis  ejus  houos  habeatur ;  si  non  apostolum  agnoscamus  ; 
eura  tamen  ecu  patrera  revereamur;  et  demum,  si  non  in  canoncm  ilium  recipi- 
endum  ducamus,  saltern  in  classicis  scriptoribus,  pro  dignitate  quam  olim  obtinuit 
apvid  ecclesi»  scriptores  antinuissimos,  uumeremus.  Pruefat.  Editoris  Oxoni* 
tnsi*. 


LET.  Till.  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 

day  before  the  world  was  finished,  Let  us  make  man 

after  our  image  and  our  likeness."*     Again,  " for 

if  he  had  not  come  in  the  flesh,  how  could  we  mortals, 
seeing  him,  have  been  preserved  ;  when  they  who  be- 
hold the  sun,  which  is  to  perish,  and  is  the  work  of  his 
hands,  are  unable  to  look  directly  against  its  rays."f 
Compare  Deu.  xviii.  16.  Exod.  xxxiii.  20.  Judges 

vi.  23.  and  xiii.  22.  Again  " if  then  the  Son  of  God, 

being  Lord,  and  being  to  judge  the  quick  and  dead, 
suffered,  to  the  end  that  his  wound  might  make  us  alive ; 
let  us  believe  that  the  Son  of  God  had  no  power  to 
suffer,  had  it  not  been  for  us."J  And  again,  "  Mean 
while  thou  hast  [the  whole  doctrine]  concerning  the 
majesty  of  Christ ;  how  all  things  were  made  for  him 
and  through  him  ;  to  whom  be  honour,  power,  and  glory, 
now  and  forever."||  He  who  penned  these  sentences, 
was  surely  a  devout  believer  in  our  Lord's  divinity : 
it  is  needless  to  observe,  that  he  was  a  Christian ;  and 
almost  as  needless  to  observe,  that  he  had  been  a  Jew, 
for  in  that  age,  none  but  a  person  bred  in  Judaism? 
could  possess  that  minute  knowledge  of  the  Jewish  rites, 
which  is  displayed  in  this  book.  In  the  writer  there- 
fore of  the  Epistle  of  St  Barnabas,  we  have  one  instance 


*  Oominus  sustiimit  pati  pro  aiiimi  nostrA,  cum  sit  orbis  terraruin  domiuus, 
cui  dixit  die  ante  constitutionera  sieculi  "  Faciamus  bominem  ad  imaginem  ct 
liimlitudinem  nostrum."  sec.  v. 

t  ""  E*  >*$  f*»  »>-^«v  »  <r*Qtl,  new  ety  tra&H/ufv  €ti$pv7ru  fatvoflK  ettfov,  o7f 

7-sr    /Mt>.Acv7«   (AX    tnau    »X*s;,    t&»    ^uftev    a-fix    i^a^sy?*,    K#    /<r,^wcvy    j/f 
/.    sec.  v. 
Ei  ta   o    t//sf  TX  S-tt,   otv   Kuptss,   XM  f*t\\w  xfivw  Bavins  JWM* 


ft  fjat  fkt  HKSL;.     sec.  vii. 

H  Habes  interim  de  majestate  Christi,  quo  modo  omoia  in  ilium  et  per  ilium 
facta  sunt:  cut  sit  honor,  virtus,  gloria  iiuuc  et  ia  »^cuJa  ssctuloraw,    «9«t  xvij. 


LETTERS  IN  HEPLY  LET.   Vlll 

of  a  Hebrew  Christian  of  the  apostolick  age,  who  be- 
lieved in  our  Lord's  divinity. 

3.  But  this  is  not  all.     They  must  have  been  origi- 
nally Jews  to  whom  this  epistle  was  addressed.    The 
discourse  supposes  them  well  acquainted  with  the  Jew- 
ish  rites,  which  are  the  chief  subject  of  it ;  and  indeed, 
to  any  not  bred  in  Judaism,  the  book  had  been  uninter- 
esting and  unintelligible.     They  were  Hebrew  Chris- 
tians, therefore,  to  whom  a  brother  of  the  circumcision 
holds  up  the  doctrine  of  our  Lord's  divinity.     He  up- 
holds it,  not  barely  as  his  own  persuasion,  but  as  an  ar- 
ticle of  their  common  faith :  he  brings  no  arguments  to 
prove  it — he  employs  no  rhetorick  to  recommend  it — he 
mentions  it  as  occasion  occurs,  without  showing  any 
anxiety  to  inculcate  it,  or  any  apprehension,  that  it 
would  be  denied  or  doubted — he  mentions  it  in  that  un- 
hesitating language,  which  implies  that  the  publick  opin- 
ion stood  with  his  own.   So  that,  in  this  writer,  we  have 
not  only  an  instance  of  au  Hebrew  Christian,  of  the 
apostolick  age,  holding  the  doctrine  of  our  Lord's  divin- 
ity ;  but  in  the  book,  we  have  the  clearest  evidence, 
that  this  was  the  common  faith  of  the  Hebrew  Christians 
of  that  age,  or  in  other  words,  of  the  primitive  church 
of  Jerusalem. 

4.  This,  Sir,  is  the  proof  which  I  had  to  produce,  of 
the  consent  of  that  church  with  the  later  Gentile  chur- 
ches in  this  great  article.   It  is  so  direct  and  full,  though 
it  lies  in  a  narrow  compass  ;  that  if  this  be  laid  in  the 
one  scale,  aud  your  whole  mass  of  evidence  drawn  from 
incidental  and  ambiguous  allusions,  in  the  other, 

"  The  Utter  will  fly  up,  and  kick  the  beam.'7 

I  am,  &c. 


LET.  IX.  TO  DR  PR1ESTLE\ 


LETTER  NINTH. 

The  proof  of  the  orthodoxy  of  the  first  age,  overturns 
Dr  Priestley's  arguments  from  Hegesippus  and  Jus- 
tin Martyr.  —  Hegesippus  a  voucher  for  the  Trinita- 
rian faith.  —  Dr  Priestley's  own  principles  set  aside 
his  interpretations  of  Justin  Martyr.  —  Dr  Priestley 
himself  gives  it  up.  —  Tertullian  makes  no  acknowl- 
edgment of  any  popularity  of  the  Unitarian  tenets  in 
his  own  time. 


SINCE  it  is  proved  of  the  first  Christians  of  the  cir* 
cumcision,  that  they  were  believers  in  our  Lord's  divin*. 
ity  f  what  becomes  of  your  two  arguments  to  the  contra- 
ry, from  Hegesippus  and  Justin  Martyr? 

3.  The  argument  from  Hegesippus,  rested  on  a  pre- 
sumption that  Hegesippus  himself  was  an  Unitarian  ; 
that  Hegesippus  himself  was  an  Unitarian  was  presumed, 
because  he  was  a  Christian  of  the  Hebrews  ;  and  the 
Christians  of  the  Hebrews,  were  supposed  to  be  gener- 
ally of  that  persuasion  :  but  now  that  the  reverse  is  pro- 
ved of  the  Hebrew  Christians,  the  presumption  must  be 
reversed  concerning  Hegesippus.  Hegesippus  must  be 
deemed  no  Unitarian,  and  all  consequences  deduced 
from  the  contrary  supposition,  must  be  reversed,  or  at 
least,  they  will  vanish, 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  /A". 

3.  You  remark  indeed,  that  Hegesippus,  enumerating 
the  heresies  of  his  time,  makes  no  mention  of  the  Ebio- 
HJEan."*    But  this,  I  suppose,  is  mentioned,  only  as  a 
circumstance  that  might  seem  to  corroborate  the  infer- 
ence, from  the  supposed  prevalency  of  the  EbionjEan 
tenets  in  the  ancient  Hebrew  church,  if  that  supposition 
might  be  allowed  to  stand.    It  will  hardly  be  pretended, 
that  this  circumstance  alone,  will  amount  to  a  proof,  that 
Hegesippus  was  a  dissenter  from  what  hath  been  shown 
to  be  the  prevailing  opinion  of  his  church.     Of  the  five 
books  of  his  Ecclesiastical  Commentaries,  nothing  more 
survives,  than  a  few  sentences,  cited  by  Eusebius  in  dif- 
ferent parts  of  his  history  ;  which  all  brought  together, 
might  perhaps  fill  two  pages  and  a  half  in  a  folio  of 
a  middling  size.    In  these  fragments,  no  mention  occurs 
of  the  Ebionaean  heresy — Is  it  therefore  to  be  concluded, 
that  the  Ebionites  were  not  mentioned,  or  not  mention- 
ed  as  hereticks,  in  the  entire  work?  Or  where  is  the  co- 
gency of  this  argument?  In  certain  fragments  of  the 
work  of  Hegesippus,  the  Ebionites  are  not  mention- 
ed as  hereticks  ;  therefore  the  author  was  himself  an 
Ebionite. 

4.  Scanty  as  these  fragments  are,  Providence  hath  so 
ordered,  that  clear  evidence  is  to  be  found  in  them,  that 
Hegesippus  was  no  Ebionite  ;  and  that  his  testimony  is 
to  be  found  in  them,  in  favour  of  the  Catholick  faith. 
That  he  was  no  Ebionite,  appears  with  the  highest  evi- 
dence, from  a  little  circumstance  incidentally  mentioned 
by  Eusebius,  which  those  who  only  look  through  an- 


•  Hist,  of  Corrup.  *ol.  i.  p.  «.  and  vol.  ii.  p.  48C.    Ileply  to  Monthly  Review 
for  June,  p.  8.    Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  143. 


l.KT.  At.  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 

cient  writers,  may  be  very  apt  to  overlook.  Eusebius 
relates,  that  Hegesippus  cited  the  proverbs  of  Solomon, 
by  a  title  which  implied  his  acknowledgment  of  the 
book  :*  whereas,  the  Ebionites  acknowledged  no  part 
of  the  Old  Testament  but  the  Pentateuch,  nor  the  whole 
of  that.f  His  testimony  in  favour  of  the  Catholick  faith, 
is  contained  in  his  declaration — "  that  he  found  in  all 
the  churches  which  he  visited,  in  his  journey  to  Rome, 
that  faith  maintained,  which  was  agreeable  to  the  law, 
the  prophets,  and  the  doctrine  of  our  Lord/'J  Hegesip. 
pus,  in  this  declaration,  bears  his  testimony  to  the  faith 
of  all  the  churches  at  this  time,  that  it  was  the  faith 
which  Christ  had  taught.  But  what  faith  the  churches 
at  this  time  maintained,  let  Irena-us  and  Justin  testify  : 
and  where  is  the  Unitarian  who  will  have  the  forehead 
to  affirm,  that  the  faith,  described  as  the  faith  Catholick, 
by  Irenaaus  and  by  Justin,  was  any  other  than  the  Tri- 
nitarian ? 

5.  So  much  for  Hegesippus — Now  for  Justin  Martyr. 
Your  argument  from  his  supposed  apology  for  his  own 
opinions,  as  contrary  to  the  general  and  prevailing,  rests 
on  a  particular  interpretation  of  certain  expressions, 
which  in  themselves  perhaps,  are  not  free  from  am- 


*  Euseb.  Ecc.  Hist.  lib.  iv.  e.  22. 

•j-  Dr  Priestley,  in  the  third  of  his  Second  Letters,  questions  this  fact :  that  the 
Ebionites  acknowledged  no  part  of  the  Old  Testament  but  the  Pentateuch  ;  and  I 
must  confess  that  his  objections  carry  some  weight.  He  remarks  in  particular, 
that  Irenxns  says  of  them,  that  they  were  over-curious  in  the  exposition  of  the 
prophecies ;  and  that  Grabe  mentions  fragments,  which  he  had  seen,  of  an  expo- 
sition of  prophets,  ascribed  to  Ebion.  Still,  that  Hegesippus  was  no  Ebionite,  is 
evident  from  the  favourable  testimony  which  he  bears,  to  the  general  doctrine  of 
the  church  in  his  own  time. 

t  Ruaeb.  Eco.  Hist.  lib.  iv,  o.  23. 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  7X. 

biguity.  But  this  interpretation,  Sir,  rests  on  your 
assumption,  that  the  first  Christians  were  Unitarian. 
This  being  now  disproved,  I  will  reason  against  youv 
interpretation,  from  your  own  principles,  and,  with  lit- 
tle variation,  in  your  own  words  ;  and  from  the  contra- 
ry  interpretation,  I  will  deduce  the  contary  conclusion. 

6.  Justin  wrote,  you  know,  "  about  the  year  140, 
2.  e.  about  eighty  years  after  the  time  of  the  apostles.3'* 
If  we  consider  the  state  of  opinions  in  their  time  «  we 
can  hardly  doubt,  whether  Justin  asserts  it  or  not,  that 
the  doctrine  of  our  Lord's  divinity^  must  have  been 
the  prevailing  one  in  bis  time.??f  For  we  have  certain 
evidence,  ||  that  it  was  the  opinion  of  the  church  in  the 
age  of  the  apostles  ;  and  it  is  not  likely,  that  so  impor- 
tant a  doctrine  should  be  generally  abandoned,  "  in  so 
short  a  time  as  fourscore  years.§  And  if  we  take  in 
another  well  authenticated  circumstance,  we  shall  be 
obliged  to  reduce  this  short  space  to  one  still  shorter. 

Hegesippus  says that  the  church  of  Jerusalem  con- 

tinued  a  virgin,  or  free  from  heresy,  till  the  death  of 
Simeon,  who  succeeded  James  the  Just,  that  is,  till  the 
time  of  Trajan,T[  or  about  the  year  100  or  perhaps  110. 

Knowing  therefore,  (from  another  evidence,  that  of 

Barnabas,)  what  this  purity  of  Christian  faith  was,  and 
what  Hegesippus  must  have  known  it  to  be ;  we  have 
only  the  space  of  forty,  or  perhaps  thirty  years,  for  so 


*  Reply  to  Monthly  Review  for  June,  p.  17. 

•}•  Dr.  Priestley's  words  are  the  simple   humanity  of  Christ. 

$  Reply   to  Monthly  Review  for  June,  p.  17. 

11  See  my  last  Letter. 

§  Reply  to  Monthly  Review  for  June,  p.  17. 

^  Euseb.  Ecc.  Hist.  lib.  iii,  c.  32. 


LET.  /JT.  TO  DR  PRIESTLEV. 

great  a  change.  So  rapid  at  that  particular  period  must 
have  been  that  movement,  which  we  find  by  experience, 
to  be  naturally,  one  of  the  very  slowest  in  the  whole 
system  of  nature,  viz.  the  revolution  of  opinions  in  great 
bodies  of  men.  Can  it  then  be  thought  probable,  that 
the  generality,  either  of  Jewish  or  Gentile  Christians, 
or  both  considered  as  one  body,  the  «/  WM/J-O/,  should 
have  abandoned  the  doctrine  of  our  Lord's  divinity*  in 
the  time  of  Justin  Martyr  ?"f  Certainly  not.  The 
Words  therefore,  *S  «'?  01  7r\e/ro/  Ma  pti  S«£a<ra/Jcc  ilnoM 
could  not  be  intended  to  convey  the  sense,  which  you 
and  your  vindicator  would  impose  upon  them.  On  the 
contrary,  they  must  be  understood  as  an  assertion,  or  at 
least  as  an  insinuation,  that  the  opinion  of  our  Lord's 
mere  humanity,  was  generally  condemned. 

7.  I  once  thought,  to  have  entered  minutely  into  every 
part  of  the  argument,  which  you  and  your  vindicator 
have  framed  from  this  passage  of  Justin.  But  I  find 
myself  excused  from  that  task,  by  your  candid  acknow- 
ledgment, in  the  sixth  article  of  your  postscript,  that  you 
are  influenced  in  your  construction  of  this  passage,  by 
your  own  particular  opinions ;  and  that  another  person, 
Laving  a  different  persuasion  concerning  the  state  of 
opinions  in  that  age,  will  naturally  be  inclined  to  put  a 
different  construction  upon  it."J  A  passage,  which  may 
bear  one  or  another  construction,  according  to  the  previ- 
ous persuasions  of  the  reader,  can  be  of  little  avail  on 
either  side.  You  are  welcome  to  all  the  proof  of  that 


*  Dr  Priestley's  words  are,  t/ie  simple  humanity  of  Christ. 
f  Reply  to  Monthly  Review  for  June,  p.  18,  19. 

*  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  130. 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  IX. 

sort,  which  you  will  take  the  trouble  to  amass.  You 
seem,  Sir,  not  insensible  of  its  insignificance.  Perceiv- 
ing, at  last,  that  the  expressions  of  Justin,  when  you 
have  made  the  most  of  them,  are  but  ambiguous,  you 
are  inclined  to  lay  but  little  stress  upon  the  passage  : 
you  resume  the  consideration  of  it,  with  a  declaration, 
that  you  are  not  "  solicitous  about  trifles."*  I  must  re- 
mark  however,  that  expressions,  which  in  themselves 
might  be  very  ambiguous,  may  receive  a  definite  sense 
from  the  kno\vn  history  of  the  writer's  times.  This  is 
the  case  in  this  passage  of  Justin — his  words,  consider- 
ed by  themselves,  are  ambiguous ;  but,  connected  with 
the  opinions  of  the  writer  and  of  his  age,  they  afford  a 
decisive  testimony  against  you. 

8.  But  you  think,  if  Justin  Martyr  and  Hegesippus 
fail,  you  have  still  the  positive  testimony  of  Tertullian, 
to  oppose  to  my  conclusions,  from  the  faith  of  the  first 
Christians.  Tertullian,  who  was  little  younger  than 
Justin,  complains,  that  in  his  time  the  Unitarian  doc- 
trine was  the  general  persuasion.  «  The  simple,  the 
ignorant,  and  the  unlearned,  who  are  always  a  great 
part  of  the  body  of  Christians,  because  the  rule  of  faith, 
transfers  their  worship  of  many  gods  to  the  one  true 
God  ;  not  understanding  that  the  unity  of  God  is  to 
be  maintained,  but  with  the  economy;  dread  this 
economy."!  I  must  confess,  Sir,  here  seems  to  be 
a  complaint  against  the  unlearned  Christians,  as  in 
general  unfavourable  to  the  Trinitarian  doctrine ;  but 
the  complaint  is  of  your  own  raising — Tertullian  will 


*  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  127. 
f  Hist,  of  Corrup.  vol.  i.  p.  oS. 


LET.  AT.  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 

vouch  but  for  a  very  small  part  of  it.  "  Simple  per- 
sons,* says  Tertullian,  (not  to  call  them  ignorant,  and 
idiots,)  who  always  make  the  majority  of  believers, 
because  the  rule  of  faith  itself,  carries  us  away  from 
the  many  gods  of  the  heathen,  to  the  one  true  God ; 
not  understanding,  that  one  God  is  indeed  to  be  be- 
lieved, but  with  an  economy  (or  arrangement)  of  the 
Godhead ;  startle  at  the  economy.  They  take  it  for 
granted,  that  the  number  and  disposition  of  the  Tri- 
nity, is  a  division  of  the  Unity.  They  pretend  that 
two,  and  even  three,  are  preached  by  us,  and  ima- 
gine that  they  themselves,  are  the  worshippers  of  one 
God.  We,  they  say,  hold  the  monarchy.  Latins  have 
caught  up  the  word  monarchia,  Greeks  will  not  un- 
derstand ceconomia."  Let  the  author's  words  be  thua 
exactly  rendered,  and  you  will  find  in  them  neither 
complaint,  nor  acknowledgment,  of  a  general  preva- 
lence of  the  Unitarian  doctrine,  among  Christians  of 
any  rank.  Tertullian  alleges,  that  what  credit  it 
obtained,  was  only  with  the  illiterate  ;  nor  with  all  the 
illiterate,  but  with  those  only,  who  were  ignorant  and 
stupid  in  the  extreme.  To  preclude  the  plea  of  num- 
bers, he  remarks,  that  the  illiterate  will  always  make 
the  majority  of  believers.  "  Some  simple  people,  he 
says,  "  take  alarm  at  the  notion  of  a  plurality  of 
persons  in  the  unity  of  the  Godhead.  Simple  people, 
snui  I!  I  should  have  said,  ignorant  and  dull  5  who  have 


*  Simplices  enira  (nee  dixerim  imprudentes  et  idiotx)  quse  major  semper 
eredentium  pars  est,  quouiam  et  ipsa  reguta  fidei,  a  pluribas  diis  sieculi,  &e 
non  intelligcnte?  uricum  quidera,  sed  cum  suu  wconoruiu  eredendmn,  e 
ad  oeconomiam. 

23 


LETTEUS  IN  REPLY  LET.  IX. 

never  been  made  to  comprehend  the  true  sense  of  the 
apostle's  creed ;  which  speaks  of  oiie  God,  in  oppo- 
sition only  to  a  plurality  of  independent  gods,  wor- 
shipped by  the  heathen,  without  any  respect  to  the 
metaphysical  unity  of  the  Deity.  When  it  is  consi- 
dered, that  persons  of  mean  endowments  must  always 
be  the  majority  of  a  body,  collected,  as  the  church 
is,  from  all  ranks  of  men;  it  were  no  wonder,  if  the 
followers  of  the  Unitarian  preachers,  were  more  nu- 
merous than  they  really  are."  This,  Sir,  is  the  na- 
tural exposition  of  the  passage,  which  you  cite,  as 
Tertullian's  testimony  of  the  popularity  of  your  fa- 
vourite opinions,  in  his  own  time.  It  is  no  such  testi- 
mony. It  is  a  charge  of  ignorance  against  your  party ; 
of  such  ignorance  as  would  invalidate  the  plea  of  num- 
bers, if  that  plea  could  be  set  up.  The  argument  which 
you  build,  npon  the  rank  and  condition  of  Tertullian's 
Unitarians,  who  were  common  or  unlearned  people,  can 
be  of  no  force,  unless  it  could  be  proved,  that  the  Uni- 
tarian opinion  was  general  in  this  rank  of  Christians. 
The  common  people,  who  will  be  the  last  to  depart 
from  the  opinions  of  their  ancestors,  when  they  are 
left  to  themselves;  will,  on  the  other  hand,  be  the 
first  to  be  staggered  with  difficulties,  and,  for  that 
reason,  the  first  to  be  misled.  Whatever  therefore, 
might  be  the  novelty  of  the  Unitarian  doctrine,  in  the 
age  of  Tertullian,  it  is  no  wonder  that  it  should  find 
admirers,  among  the  most  iguorant  and  stupid  of  the 
common  people.* 


See  the  Second  of  the  Supplemental  Disquisitions. 


LET.  IX.  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 

9.  You  must  search,  Sir,  for  some  clearer  testimo- 
ny, than  any  that  is  to  be  found  in  Tertullian,  Justin 
Martyr,  or  the  few  surviving  fragments  of  Hegesip- 
pus,  to  oppose  to  my  proof  from  the  epistle  of  St  Bar- 
nabas. 

I  am,  #c, 


180  LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  X 


LETTER  TENTH. 

In  reply  to  Dr  Priestley's  third  letter,  in  which  he 
would  prove,  that  the  primitive  Unitarians  were  not 
deemed  hereticks. — His  arguments  from  Tertullian, 
Justin  JMartyr,  and  Irenceus,  confuted  by  the  Month- 
ly Mviewer.—The  insufficiency  of  Dr  Priestley's  re- 
fly. — The  arguments  from  Clemens  Mexandrinus, 
and  from  Jerome,  confuted. 

J)EJR  SIR. 

IT  should  seem,  that  you  have  some  secret  mistrust 
in  your  own  heart,  of  the  proof  which  you  pretend  to 
bring,  that  the  Unitarian  doctrine  was  orthodoxy  in  the 
first  age ;  or  you  would  have  been  less  solicitous  to  show, 
that  the  primitive  Unitarians  were  not  deemed  hereticks. 
For  a  proof,  that  confessed  orthodoxy  was  not  deemed 
heresy,  or  in  other  words,  that  the  orthodox  did  never 
excommunicate  themselves,  might  have  been  spared. 
This  however,  is  the  subject  of  your  third  letter.  Your 
arguments  from  the  apostles'  creed,  as  it  is  stated  by 
Tertullian  ;*  from  the  little  severity  with  which  Irenseus 
speaks  of  the  Ebionites  ;f  and  from  the  respect  with 
which  Justin  Martyr  treats  those  blasphemers  5  J  for 


Letters  to  Dr  Horsky,  p.  27,  28. 
Ibid.  p.  32.  t  Ibid.  p.  31. 


LET.  X.  TO  Dtt  PRIESTLEY.  18 i 

that  is  the  appellation  by  which  his  regard  for  them  is 
expressed,  have  been  already  so  completely  answered 
by  my  good  and  able  ally,*  the  Monthly  reviewer,! 
that  little  is  left  for  me  to  say  on  the  subject. 

2.  I  must  take  this  occasion  to  declare,  that  you  arc 
perfectly  right,  in  your  conjecture,}  that  I  entertain  an 
high  opinion  of  that  gentleman's  learning  in  ecclesiasti- 
cal history.  Indeed,  my  opinion  of  his  learning  hath 
been  gradually  rising,  while  yours  hath  been  going 
down  :||  and  what  you  predicted,  is  at  last  come  to  pass; 
1  think  myself  happy  in  the  alliance  of  that  able  critick. 
I  am  informed  by  your  last  publication,^  that  my  val- 
uable ally  is  the  Rev.  Mr  Samuel  Badcock,  a  dissent- 
ing minister  at  South  Molton,  in  Devonshire.  To  what 
ever  denomination  of  Christians  my  worthy  fellow-la- 
bourer  may  belong,  he  is  learned,  and  an  able  advocate 
of  the  faith  which  was  at  first  delivered  to  the  saints, 
and  his  alliance  will  not  be  disgraceful,  though  he  choo- 
ses to  fight  in  a  reviewer's  armour.  Indeed,  I  cannot 
see  for  what  reason  the  alliance  of  a  Christian  divine, 
although  he  be  a  reviewer  by  profession,  should  be  less 
creditable  than  that,  which  you,  Sir,  so  obsequiously 
court,  with  Jew,  Turk,  heretick,  and  infidel.  You 
seem  to  think  it  unfair,  that  your  antagonist  should 
avail  himself  of  the  prodigious  advantage,  which  the 
review  gives  him,  of  a  cheap  and  immense  circulation: If 


*  «« Dr  Horsley  considers  this  writer  as  learned  in  ecclesiastical  history,  and 
may  \»ish  to  have  him  for  an  ally." 
|  In  the  Monthly  Review  for  January,  1714. 
4  See  note  (*). 

»j  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  159. 

§  Remarks  on  the  Monthly  Review  of  the  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  &.c. 
^  Preface  to  the  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  xxL 


183  LETTERS  IN  RKPLY  LET.  X. 

this  complaint,  Sir,  really  comes  with  an  ill  grace 
from  you ;  who  are  every  day  diffusing  your  dangerous 
doctrines  among  the  common  people,  in  pamphlets  pub- 
lished for  their  benefit,  in  an  ordinary  form,  to  be  pur- 
chased  at  the  easy  price  of  sixpence,  a  groat,  and  even 
twopence.  Some  reserve  on  our  part  might  be  proper, 
if  any  were  observed  on  yours  :  but  while  you  invite 
the  most  illiterate  of  the  laity  to  take  a  part  in  the  dis- 
pute, it  is  our  duty  to  guard  them  what  we  can,  from  se- 
duction ;  to  take  advantage  of  every  mode  of  cheap  and 
general  circulation,  that  the  antidote  may  be  as  widely 
spread,  and  as  easy  to  be  had,  as  the  medicated  phials. 
I  return  to  my  subject. 

3.  Justin  Martyr's  respect  for  the  Unitarians  of  his 
time,  you  collect  from  certain  passages,  in  which, 
speaking  of  here  ticks,  with  the  highest  indignation,  he 
makes  no  allusion,  as  you  conceive,  to  the  Unitarians. 
My  learned  ally  replies,*  that  in  one  of  these  passages, 
Justin  Martyr  expressly  alludes  to  the  Unitarians,  un- 
der the  very  honourable  character  of  blasphemers  of  the 
Christ,  whose  coming  had  been  announced  by  the  pro- 
phets.  He  remarks,  that  in  this  passage,  Justin  couples 
the  name  of  Christ,  with  the  title  of  "  God  of  Abraham, 
Isaac,  and  Jacob,"  in  a  manner  which,  as  it  must  bring 
to  every  learned  reader's  recollection,  other  passages  of 
the  holy  martyr's  writings,  in  which  Christ  and  the 
God  of  Abraham,  are  described  as  the  very  same  per- 
son; clearly  defines  the  particular  blasphemy,  which 
was  the  subject  of  the  accusation.  My  learned  ally 
complains,  that  your  translation  of  this  passage  is  so 


*  Monthly  Review  for  January,  1784,  p.  61,  62. 


LET.  X.  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 

managed,  as  to  conceal  this  allusion  to  the  Unitarian 
heresy ;  and  to  convey  «  no  idea  of  distinction,  between 
the  Maker  of  the  world,  and  the  God  of  Abraham, 
Isaac,  and  Jacob."  He  might  have  added  another 
complaint :  that  in  your  translation,  you  have  suppres- 
sed another  clause  in  the  same  period,  in  which  certain 
persons  are  treated  with  great  severity,  fc<  who,  instead 
of  worshipping  Jesus,"  [instead  of  paying  him  divine 
worship,  for  that  is  the  proper  force  of  the  verb  «£tir  J 
"  confessed  him  only  in  name."  Your  reply*  is,  indeed, 
very  extraordinary — It  consists  of  three  parts  :  An  apol- 
ogy for  the  omissions  ;  a  defence  of  your  argument ;  a 
flat  denial  f  that  you  have  made  the  omissions,  for  which 
however  you  have  condescended  to  apologize. 

4.  Your  apology  is,  that  the  omissions  were  made  to 
shorten  a  long  Greek  quotation  ;  J  but,  Sir,  the  omis- 
sions are  in  your  English  translation  ;  and  the  Greek, 
which  is  given  at  length  at  the  bottom  of  your  page,  is 
nothing  shortened  by  them — if  the  passage  was  to  be 
shortened,  either  in  Greek  or  in  English,  why  was  this 
shortening  effected,  by  the  omission  of  those  clauses  in 
particular,  which  might  seem  at  least  adverse  to  your 
argument  ?  Your  defence  is,  that  the  omitted  passages, 
affect  not  the  argument  either  way :  for  the  whole  of 
Mr  Badcock's  remark  is  answered,  you  say,  at  once,§ 
by  observing,  "  that  it  is  to  no  sort  of  purpose,  who  it 
was  that  Justin  meant  by  the  God  of  Abraham,  Isaac, 


*  Remarks  on  the  Monthly  Review  of  the  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  sec.  L 
t  Appendix  to  the  Remark?. 

4  Remarks,  p.  14. 

5  Ibid.  p.  13. 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  Z,£T.  JT. 

and  Jacob ;  but  who  it  was,  that  the  hereficks  he  is 
speaking  of,  meant  by  the  person  so  described,  and 
whom  they  meant  to  blaspheme  :  and  this  certainly  was 
not  Jesus  Christ,  but  another  being,  the  supposed  ma. 
ker  of  the  world,  the  author  of  the  Jewish  dispensation, 
and  the  introducer  of  much  evil,  which  they  said  Christ 
was  sent  to  rectify."  Sir,  I  apprehend,  and  my  learn- 
ed ally,  I  believe,  will  be  of  the  same  opinion,  that  the 
true,  not  the  supposed,  maker  of  the  world,  was  the 
person  blasphemed,  by  the  introduction  of  the  fabulous 
Demiurgus  of  the  Gnosticks.  Of  the  same  opinion  was 
Justin.  You  cannot,  Sir,  know  so  little  of  his  language 
as  to  imagine,  that  by  the  title  of  xmlm;  TW  ox«r,  the 
Maker  of  the  Universe,  he  describes  the  Gnostick  De- 
miurgus,  not  the  true  Creator,  the  Father  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ.  But  how  is  it  that  you  maintain,  that  Je- 
sus Christ  was  not  blasphemed,  by  those  whom  Justin 
accuses  ?  Justin  describes  those  whom  he  would  accuse, 
as  blasphemers  of  Jesus  Christ.  This  is,  in  part,  the 
matter  of  his  accusation — that  you  should  attempt  to 
deny  it  is  extraordinary,  Sir,  when  you  confess,  that 
you  omitted  it  "  to  shorten/' — it  appears,  however,  that 
your  arguments  rest  entirely  upon  a  supposition,  that 
the  blasphemy  of  Jesus  was  no  part  of  Justin's  accusa- 
tion :  you  took  therefore,  that  method  of  shortening, 
which  might  best  serve  your  purpose. 

5.  But  you  insist,  that  "  they  were  Gnosticks  only, 
not  Unitarian  Christians,  that  Justin  was  reflecting  upon 
or  alluding  to."*  Sir,  will  you  take  upon  you  to  define 
on  whom  Justin  would  reflect,  in  contradiction  to  Justin's 


*  Remarks,  p,  13. 


LET.  X.  TO  DR.  PRIESTLEY. 

own  declaration?  I  think  with  you,  that  the  phrase 
yet?  *OL]  *hKov  Tf»*ov  is  distributive ;  introducing,  not  the 
mention  of  any  new  sect,  but  a  specifick  enumeration  of 
the  sects  which  had  been  already  mentioned,  under  the 
general  description  of  "  those,  who  taught  men  to  say 
and  to  do,  many  impious   and  blasphemous  things." 
But  the  force  of  the  objection,  which  my  learned  ally 
hath  brought  against  your  argument,  depends  not  on 
the  exact  sense  of  this  phrase — it  is  sufficient  for  our 
purpose,  that  a  blasphemy  of  Christ,  by  denying  his  di- 
vinity, and  refusing  to  honour  him  with  divine  worship, 
is  a  part  of  Justin's  description  of  the  heresies  to  which  he 
alludes ;  whence  it  is  manifest,  that  his  reflections  al- 
lude to  other  hereticks  beside  the  Gnosticks ;   unless 
indeed  you  will  choose  to  gay,  that  some  of  the  Gnosticks 
had  a  principal  share  in  this  Unitarian  blasphemy : 
which,  if  you  should  affirm,  you  will  in  me  have  no  an- 
tagonist.    It  is  indeed  my  opinion,  that  the  Cerinthian 
Gnosticks  were  the  first  who  denied  the  divinity  of  our 
Lord — Cerinthus  was  much  earlier  than  Ebion;  and  Ebi- 
on,  in  his  notions  of  the  Redeemer,  seems  to  have  been 
a  mere  Cerinthian  :  but  if  you  concur  with  me  in  these 
opinions,  it  is  little  to  your  purpose  to  insist,  that  Justin 
Martyr's  reflections  are  levelled  only  at  the  Gnosticks ; 
since  in  the  Gnosticks,  according  to  this  view  of  their 
opinions,  he  censures  the  Unitarians  :  if  you  deny,  that 
our  Lord's  mere  humanity  was  a  doctrine  maintained 
by  any  branch  of  the  Gnosticks,  still  Justin  express- 
ly censures  the  Unitarians.     If  the  Ebionites  are  not 
mentioned  by  name,  are  you   sure  they  are  not  in- 
cluded among  the  [«A*O*  aA*«  oro^ar/]  «  others  of  va- 
rious denominations,"  thus  generally  mentioned  after 
an  enumeration  of  the  principal  Gnostick  sects  ?  The 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  JT. 


Ebionjcan  heresy  was  at  this  time  in  its  infancy,  and 
probably  too  inconsiderable  to  deserve  particular  no- 
tice. 

6.  Such,  Sir,  is  your  apology  for  your  omission,  and 
such  is  your  defence  of  your  argument.     After  this  apo- 
logy, and  after  this  defence,  comes  in  your  appendix  a 
flat  denial  of  the  omissions,  for  which  you  have  apolo- 
gized.    A  friend  has  told  you,  that  the  passage  of  Jus- 
tin is  entire,  and  in  its  proper  place  in  your  letters  to 
me,  page  31.*    It  is  true,  Sir,  the  passage  is  entire,  in 
the  Greek,  in  the  margin  of  your  book  : — but  has  your 
friend  told  you,  that  it  is  entire  in  your  translation  ?  My 
learned  ally  complains,  and  indeed,  Sir,  with  too  much 
reason,  that  you  write  for  the  unlearned — The  entire 
passage,  as  long  as  it  appears  not  in  your  translation, 
lay  innocently  enough  in  the  Greek,  at  the  bottom  of 
your  page. 

7.  To  your  argument  from  the  apostle's  creed,  as  re- 
cited by  Tertullian,t  it  might,  Sir,  be  a  sufficient  reply, 
that  Jesus  Christ  is  mentioned  in  it  as  the  Son  of  God ; 
a  title  which,  in  the  sense  in  which  it  was  constantly  ex- 
pounded and  understood,  reprobates  the  Unitarian  he- 
resy ;  but  my  learned  ally  refers  youj  to  another  creed, 
produced  by  Tertullian  in  the  book,  De  Prcescriptione, 
Sfc.  in  which  the  divinity  of  Christ  is  more  explicitly 
asserted.     This  you  say  is  not  simply  a  creed,  but  an 
exposition  of  the  creed,  ||  and  expresses  no  more  than 


*  Appendix  to  Remarks. 

f  Letters  to  Dr  Horaley,  p.  27,  28. 

*  Monthly  Review  for  January,  1784,  p. 
H  Remarks,  &c.  p.  18. 


LET.  Xf  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 

Tertullian's  own  faith  :"*  Tertullian  himself,  Sir,  "  was 
of  another  opinion — He  calls  this  exposition,  a  rule  of 
faitli  appointed  by  Christ — he  says,  it  expressed  the 
general  faith,  which  was  disputed  by  none  but  here- 
ticks."  After  this,  Sir,  will  you  say,  that  "  Tertullian 
did  not  consider  Unitarians  as  excluded  from  the  name 
and  assemblies  of  Christians  ?"f 

8.  Clemens  Alexandrians,  who  makes  frequent  men- 
tion of  hereticks,  hath  been  very  silent,  you  think,  about 
the  Ebionites ;  hence,  you  seem  desirous  to  infer,  that 
Clemens  thought  them  not  heretical.     "Almost    the 
whole,"  these  are  your  words,  «  Almost  the  whole  of 
his  seventh  book  of  Stromata,  relate  to  that  subject 
[heresies].     He  mentions  fourteen  different  heresiarchs 
by  name,  and  ten  heresies  by  character ;  but  none  of 
them  bear  any  relation  to  the  Ebionites,  or  any  species 
of  Uuitarians.":j:    Indeed,  Sir,  it  was  not  without  rea- 
son, that  I  complained  in  my  former  publication,  of  the 
peculiarities  of  your  style  :  I  hope,  that  the  great  work 
which  you  are  preparing  upon  the  subject  of  our  present 
controversy,  will  be  accompanied  with  a  glossary,  ta 
explain  the  words  of  the  English  language,  upon  which 
you  shall  be  pleased  to  impose  new  senses ;  and  that  in 
particuliar,  you  will  not  omit  to  inform  your  readers, 
how  much  of  a  thing  may  be  meant  by  the  WHOLE  in 
your  new  phraseology. 

9.  I  find,  Sir,  by  the  best  computation  I  can  form 
upon  a  single  example,  which  I  am  sensible  must  be 
liable  to  great  inaccuracies,  I  speak  therefore  under  the 


Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  21, 
Ibid.  p.  27.        *  Ibid.  p.  118. 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.    AT 

correction  of  your  authoritative  decision — but  by  the  best 
computation  1  can  form,  the  WHOLE  may  be  any  part  of 
a  thing  not  less  than  a  forty-eighth  !  1  beg  your  pardon 
— I  had  written  this,  when  turning  back  to  the  errata,  at 
the  beginning  of  your  book,  I  there  find,  that  you  have 
been  yourself,  very  properly,  shocked,  at  the  extravagant 
hyperbolism  of  your  own  expressions ;  and  for  the  words 
almost  the  whole,  you  advise  the  reader  to  substitute  these, 
a  great  part.    Sir,  a  reluctant  and  imperfect  retraction,  is 
more  unseemly,  than  the  first  error,  be  it  ever  so  enor- 
mous :  if  you  would  not  be  thought  to  impose  upon  your 
reader's  ignorance,  or  to  presume  upon  his  inattention, 
you  must  correct  again ;  and  for  a  great,  bid  him  read 
a  very  little  part.    The  seventh  book  of  the  Stromata, 
in  Syiburgius's  edition,  which  I  use  as  most  convenient 
for  my  present  purpose,  because  the  pages,  not  incum- 
bered  with  notes,  all  contain  equal  quantities  of  text ;  in 
this  edition,  the  seventh  book,  Greek  and  Latin,  fills  48 
pages — the  general  subject  of  the  book  is,  the  excel- 
lence  of  Christian  Knowledge  in  preference  to  Philoso- 
phy :  this  argument  fills  more  than  38  pages  of  the  48, 
that  is,  more  than  three-fourths  of  the   whole  book, 
without  any  mention  of  hereticks ;  then,  the  author  an- 
swers an  objection  to  the  certainty  of  Christian  know- 
ledge, taken  from  the  differences  of  opinion  that  subsis- 
ted among  the  different  sects  :  this  introduces  a  gene- 
ral  invective  against  hereticks,  and  a  dissuasive  of  he- 
resy, drawn  from  general  topicks,  not  from  the  enor- 
mities of  particular  sects  ;  which  fills  eight  pages  more : 
the  dissuasive  of  heresy,  leads  to  an  argument  for  the 
authority  of  the  church  upon  the  footing  of  antiquity  ; 
and  this  introduces  the  names  of  some  remarkable  he- 
resies, which  are  mentioned  for  no  other  purpose,  but 


LET.  JT.  TO  Dll  PItlESTLEY. 


189 


to  show  that  the  very  denominations  which  they  bore, 
argued  a  late  origin,  singularity  of  opinion,  and  sepa- 
ration from  a  more  ancient  society.  This  list,  with 
many  interspersed  remarks  upon  the  origin  of  each 
sect,  and  assertions  of  the  unity  of  the  true  church, 
fills  perhaps  three-fourths  of  one  of  the  two  remaining 
pages  of  the  book :  for  the  last  page  is  taken  up  with 
a  whimsical  explanation,  of  the  Levitical  marks  of 
clean  and  unclean  beasts ;  which  are  supposed  to  be 
types,  of  the  good  and  bad  qualties,  of  true  Christians 
and  of  hereticks.  Thus  it  appears,  that  that  great  part 
of  the  seventh  book  of  the  Stromata,  which  you  had 
well  nigh  mistaken  for  the  whole,  is  somewhat  less  than 
one  part  in  forty-eight. 

10.  But  the  Ebionites  have  no  place  in  that  long  list 
of  hereticks,  which  occupies  almost  the  whole,  or,  to 
speak  more  accurately,  a  great  part,  or,  to  speak  exact- 
ly, almost  a  forty-eighth  part  of  the  seventh  book  of  the 
Stromata.*  I  think  indeed  they  have  not,  unless  they 
be  included,  which  I  suspect  may  be  the  case,  among 
the  Peratick  hereticks  ;  but  I  will  grant  that  they  are 
omitted  :  is  it,  Sir,  a  consequence,  that  Clemens  thought 
their  opinions  indifferent?  I  cannot  see  the  necessity  of 
this  conclusion,  unless  indeed  it  had  been  of  importance 
to  the  argument  of  Clemens,  that  he  should  make  an 
exact  enumeration  of  all  the  sects,  which  he  deemed 
heretical — but  this  was  not  the  case :  a  few  instances 
sufficed  for  the  illustration  of  his  reasoning  ;  and  these, 
in  a  discussion  with  Greek  philosophers,  he  would 


*  Letters  to  Dr  Hcrsley,  p,  218, 


£90  LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  X. 

naturally  select  from  those  heresies,  which,  for  some- 
thing of  subtlety  and  refinement  in  their  doctrine,  were 
the  most  likely  to  have  attracted  the  notice  of  the 
Gentiles.  A  sect,  which  lived  in  obscurity  in  the  north 
of  Galilee,  of  no  consideration  for  number,  learning 
or  abilities ;  was  likely  to  be  the  last  that  he  would 
mention. 

11.  It  is  another  circumstance  which  you  urge,  Sir, 
In  favour  of  the  early  Unitarians  ;  that  it  is  confessed 
by  Jerome,  that  the  Ebionites  were  anathematized,  not 
for  their  Unitarian  opinions,  but  for  their  rigid  adhe- 
rence to  the  Mosaick  law,* propter  hoc  solum  a 

patribus  anatliematizatt  sunt,  quod  legis  ccerimonias 
Christi  evangelio  miscuerunt. 

±2.  I  shall  frankly  confess,  Sir,  that  if  nothing  more 
were  known,  either  of  the  Ebionites  or  Cerinthians, 
from  ecclesiastical  history,  than  what  might  be  gather- 
ed from  this  sentence  of  Jerome,  I  should  be  apt  to 
conclude,  that  the  single  error  of  either  sect  was  this  : 
that  they  Judaized — the  words  however  are  capable 
of  another  meaning ;  namely,  that  the  Judaick  super, 
stition,  was  a  thing  so  criminal  in  the  judgment  of  the 
primitive  Christians,  as  to  constitute,  by  itself,  one 
very  sufficient  reason  for  the  excommunication  of  the 
sects  which  were  addicted  to  it.  For  it  is  to  be  ob^ 
served,  that  the  Ebionites  are  coupled  in  this  passage 
with  the  Cerinthians.  It  is  said  of  both,  that  "for 
this  single  thing  they  were  anathematized,  that  they 
mixed  the  ceremonies  of  the  law,  with  the  gospel  of 


*  Letters  te  Dr  Horsley,  p.  34. 


LET.  X.  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY, 

Christ."  This  being  said  of  both  without  distinction, 
must  be  said  of  either,  in  some  sense,  in  which  it  may 
be  true  of  both  :  and  if  it  aquit  the  Ebionites  of  here- 
sy, except  in  the  single  article  of  their  Judaism,  it 
equally  acquits  the  Cerinthians  :  if  it  he  to  be  conclu- 
ded from  these  expressions  of  Jerome,  that  to  deny 
our  Lord's  divinity  was  no  heresy  in  the  Ebionites ;  it 
is  equally  to  be  concluded  from  these  same  expressions, 
that  to  deny  that  God  was  the  Creator  of  the  universe, 
Was  no  heresy  in  the  Cerinthians.  If  this  passage  of 
Jerome,  be  no  testimony  in  favour  of  the  Cerinthian 
doctiine  about  the  creation,  it  is  no  testimony  in  favour 
of  the  Ebionsen  doctrine  about  our  Lord — it  is  lame 
and  defective,  like  every  other  testimony  \yhich  you 
have  produced  to  the  same  purpose  ;  and  your  opinion, 
that  the  primitive  Unitarians  were  not  considered  as 
hereticks,  I  must  still,  Sir,  in  defiance  of  all  your  tes- 
timonies, take  the  liberty  to  place  among  the  extra- 
vagant assertions  of  Daniel  Zuicker,  of  which  Simon 
Episcopius,  was  the  charitable,  but  insufficient  advo- 
cate. 

I  am,  &c. 


POSTSCRIPT. 

YOU  are  pleased,  Sir,  to  say,  in  the  conclusion  of 
your  third  letter,  that  the  Unitarian  doctrine,  even  in 
its  most  obnoxious  form,  existed  in  the  very  time  of 
the  apostles.  I  deny  that  the  Unitarian  doctrine  existed, 
at  that  time,  in  the  most  obnoxious  form.  Produce 
your  indisputable  evidence.  Observe,  that  by  the  most 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  X. 

obnoxious  form,  I  understand  that  form,  which  ex- 
cludes the  worship  of  Christ. 

N.  B.  In  answer  to  Dr  Priestley's  argument,  from 
the  writings  of  Irenseus  in  particular,  see  the  third  of 
the  Supplemental  Disquisitions. 


LET.  XI  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 


LETTER  ELEVENTH. 

In,  Reply  to  J)r  Priestley's  fourth,  in  which  he  de* 
fends  his  argument  from  a  passage  in  Athanasius. — 
The  sense  of  the  words  «'<?/*  ev\cy«c  mistaken  by  DT 
Priestley. — The  sense  of  the  word  wcw  mistaken  by 
JDr  Priestley. — Prudence  and  caution  not  synony- 
mous.— The  matter  offact9  as  represented  by  Jlthan- 
asius,  mistaken  by  l)r  Priestley. — His  grammatical 
argument  refuted. — That  Athanasius  speaks  of  21/2- 
converted  Jews,  proved  from  a  comparison  of  the  two 
elauses  in  which  Jews  are  mentioned. — The  Gentiles 
not  uninterested  in  questions  about  the  Messiah.— 
Of  deference  to  authorities. 

BEAR  SIR, 

A  SUPPOSED  testimony  of  Athanasius  made  fc 
principal  branch  of  your  original  proof,  that  the  faith  of 
the  first  Christians  was  Unitarian :  and  this,  with  other 
principal  branches  of  your  proof,  found  a  place  among 
my  specimens  of  your  evidence,  of  which  it  was  th& 
third  in  order.  For  this  testimony  of  Athanasius,  you 
refer  your  reader  to  Athanasius's  defence  of  the  Alexan- 
drine Dionysius,  where  you  think  you  find  a  confession 
of  two  very  important  circumstances  :  that  the  apostles 
used  great  caution  in  divulging  the  doctrine  of  the  pro- 
per divinity  of  Christ  5  and  that  the  occasion,  of  this. 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  XL 

caution,  was  the  pre valency  of  a  contrary  persuasion 
among  the  first  Hebrew  Christians. 

2.  In  opposition  to  this,  I  took  upon  me  to  assure  the 
Reverend  assembly  which  I  had  the  honour  to  address, 
that  no  mention  of  the  caution  of  the  apostles,  or  of  the 
heterodoxy  of  the  first  Jewish  Christians,  is  to  be  found 
in  the  defence  of  Dionysius-— I  believe  I  might  have 
added,  in  any  part  of  the  writings  of  Athanasius. 

3.  You  have  now,  Sir,  in  your  fourth  letter,  produced 
the  passage  from  the  defence  of  Dionysius,  in  which 
you  conceive  that  these  important  secrets  are  betrayed : 
this  passage,  you  say,  you  "  only  abridged  before" — * 
(I  am  sorry,  Sir,  to  remind  you,  that  the  manner  in 
which  your  abridgments  are  managed,  has  appeared  in 
other  instances.)     You  abridged  it  before,  but  now  you 
*<  give  a  larger  portion  of  it  at  full  length :"  not  the 
whole,  by  your  own  confession ;  "  for  the  whole  is  much 
too  long  to  transcribe."     Pardon  me,  Sir,  if  I  add,  that 
the  whole,  were  it  transcribed,  would  justify  the  sum- 
mary which  1  have  given  of  it  in  my  Charge  :  it  would 
prove,  that  the  example  of  the  apostles  is  alleged  for 
the  purpose  which  I  assign,  and  in  the  manner  which  I 
mention :  it  would  prove,  therefore,  that  this  "  larger 
portion,"  which  you  have  given,  "  at  full  length,"  is 
nothing  to  your  purpose.    But  to  bring  the  matter  to  a 
short  issue,  I  will  set  the  general  scope  of  the  discourse 
quite  out  of  the  question  :   I  will  take  the  particular 
portion,  which  you  have  produced,  by  itself,  as  you  de- 
sire it  should  be  taken :   and  1  will  show,  that  even 
thus  taken,  it  will  give  no  support  to  your  assertions., 


*  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  39. 


XL  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY.  £95 

without  a  singular  construction  of  certain  words  and 
phrases,  which  cannot  be  admitted. 

4.  The  apostles,  it  is  said,  spake  of  Christ  as  a  man  ; 
a  man  of  Nazareth  ;  a  man  obnoxious  to  sufferings. 
Was  it,  that  the  apostles  were  in  the  sentiments  of  Ari- 
us  ?  No  such  thing.  "  But  this  they  did,  as  wise  mas- 
ter-builders  and  stewards  of  the  mysteries  of  God  ; 
and  they  had  this  specious  pretence  for  it  --  ."* 
Stop,  Sir,  a  moment  —  what  do  I  hear?  A  specious  pre- 
tence for  it  !  For  what?  For  doing  as  wise  master-buil- 
ders and  stewards  of  the  mysteries  of  God  —  Are  spe- 
cious pretences  needed  then  for  wise  conduct?  Or  were 
the  apostles  men  to  make  pretences  ?  Surely  this  is  the 
language  of  Dr  Priestley,  not  of  Athanasius.  He 
thought  more  reverently  of  the  apostles  —  let  him  speak 
for  himself.  K«/  *w  a'/W  ix*<*"  wwyor*  Is  pretence 
the  sense  of  aVji«?  The  true  Greek  word  for  iiretence 
is  ^fopow's-,  and  even  had  this  word  been  used,  the 
adjective  tuxoyoc  would  have  carried  it  away  from  that 
base  meaning,  which  is  inseparable  from  the  English 
words  specious  pretence  :  for  euxoyor  is  not  specious  in 
the  English  sense  r  it  may  be  applied  to  any  thing  in 
quo  species  cernitwr  honesti  ;  but  it  is  not  mere  seem- 
ing  —  had  Athanasius  meant  to  say,  that  the  apostles 
had  a  specious  pretence  only  for  their  conduct,  the 
adjective  must  have  been  ^S-arac.  He  must  have  said, 
act/  *fo<p&<TH  rtvct  '^Xor  ^'^w  —or,  xa/  **  aVftduiw  mot 


5.  The  word  a*V  hath  two  principal  senses  ;  a  phil- 
osophical and  a  popular  :  either  of  the  two  may  suit 


•  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  39- 


196  LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  XL 

this  place :  amongst  the  philosophers,  it  signifies  a 
cause,  in  any  one  of  the  four  kinds  of  causes  ;  the  ma- 
terial, the  efficient,  the  formal,  or  the  final :  hence  it 
comes  to  signify  a  motive,  motives  being  final  causes, 
considered  in  their  relation  to  the  mind  of  a  rational 
agent.  Thus  Plato,  speaking  of  the  Creator's  motive* 
for  a  particular  arrangement  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  ret.  S" 
«xx.a,  ot  Sn  not!  Si*  ac  *AIT1A2  /SfUTaJo-  t'T/c  iTTtZiot  Trcurar  &c. 
in  Timteo.  Again,  S/a  h  m  AITJAN  xa/  TOY  hoyurpot 

tovli  iv  OKQV  i%  cLTrou/lw mnVaTo.  in  Timceo.  A  mo- 
tive may  be  either  good  or  bad,  but  a<V  tv^oyw  can  be 
only  good — it  must  be  a  wise  and  honourable  motive ; 
or,  in  plain  English,  a  good  reason. 

6.  A/If*,  in    the  rhetorical  or  popular  sense,  answers 
to  the  English  word  cause,  in  its  forensick  meaning : 
it  signifies  an  action  or  suit  at  law,  or  a  criminal  indict, 
ment :  in  this  sense  a/Jia  i yxoyoc  is  a  cause  fairly  defen- 
sible, upon  a  just  and  honourable  plea — I  am  inclined 
to  prefer  this  sense  of  the  word,  in  this  place,  because 
the  verb  t^yt  is  in  the  present  time,  when  the  preceding 
and  the  following,  are  in  the  past :  "  if  the  conduct  of 
the  apostles  should  be  at  any  time  questioned,  they  have 
a  fair  and  substantial  plea."     This  may  still  be  expres- 
sed in  English  by  a  good  reason.     This  therefore  is  the 
proper  English   phrase  to  convey  the   holy  father's 
meaning,  whether  ai1«z  be  taken  in  its  philosophical,  or 
in  its  popular  sense. 

7.  Now,  Sir,  if  for  specious  pretence  you  will  be 
pleased  to  substitute  good  reason ;  you  will  find  that 
this  passage,  even  in  your  own  translation,  will  afford 
no  ground  for  the  inferences  you  would  build  upon  it : 
Athanasius  proceeds  to  show  what  this  good  reason 


IET.  XI.  TO  Dlt  PRIESTLEY,  197 

was  ;  and  he  commends  the  great  sagacity  which  was 
displayed,  in  the  conduct  of  the  apostles. 

8.  The  deficiencies  of  your  translation,  I  must 
however  confess,  are  abundantly  compensated  in  your 
comment ;  "  I  now  have  produced  the  passage,"  you 
say,  "  and  have  pointed  out  a  word,  viz.  mmric,  which, 
in  the  connexion  in  which  it  stands,  can  bear  no  oth- 
er sense  than  caution,  and  great  caution  ;  /ula  Troxxn? 

ffm<rilBr .»*    Sir,  may  I  ask  in  what  lexicon  (you 

must  excuse  me,  if  I  suspect  that  you  are  used  to 
take  the  senses  of  Greek  words  from  ordinary  lexi- 
cons— )  in  what  lexicon,  good  or  had,  have  you  found 
that  <rvn<w  in  any  connexion,  may  stand  for  caution? 
It  is  literally  the  meeting  or  coming  together  of  differ- 
ent things  :  and  applied  to  the  mind,  it  is  properly  that 
faculty,  or  that  act  of  the  mind,  by  which  it  brings 
things  together,  and  compares  them,  and  forms  a  tea- 
dy  judgment  of  fitnesses  and  discongruities.  It  is  ex- 
pounded by  the  ancient  Greek  lexicographers,  who  best 
understood  their  own  language,  to  be  the  "  knowledge 
of  comparables  and  incom parables ;  or  a  ready  follow- 
ing of  the  mind,  quickly  bringing  together  the  notions 
of  things,  readily  discovering  what  is  proper  and  beseem- 
ing to  each."t  Plato  says  more  concisely,  wnuot* 
means  that  the  mind  goes  along  with  things.  J  Sagacity 
is  the  English  word,  which  most  nearly  renders  the 
same  idea — Prudence,  the  word  which  you  have  used 
in  your  translation,  may  be  born ;  but  the  idea  which  it 
gives,  is  rather  similar,  than  the  same.  You  have 


•  Letters  to  Dr  Horslrv,  p.  45. 

t  See  Phavorinua.  t  la  Cratjl*. 


498  LfcTTKUS  IN  REPLY  LET.  XL 

shown,  you  say,  <c  from  the  whole  tenor  of  the  dis- 
course, that  Athanasius  could  have  intended  nothing 
else  than  to  describe  their  prudence,  or  extreme  cau- 
tion."* Prudence,  or  extreme  caution  !  Do  you  really 
think,  Sir,  that  prudence  and  caution  in  the  English 
language  are  synonymous  ?  If  that  be  your  opinion,  I 
must  beg  that  one  or  both  of  these  words  may  go  into* 
the  glossary,!  and  be  declared  equivalent.  Caution  is 
indeed  sometimes  used  abusively  for  discretion  ;  but  in 
its  proper  sense,  it  carries  with  it  the  notion  of  some 
dishonest  art :  and  caution,  in  a  teacher  or  disputant, 
always  denotes  an  artful  provision  by  some  dishonest 
reserve,  for  the  success  of  doctrine  or  of  argument.  In 
the  present  case,  if  you  use  the  word  without  affixing 
to  it  the  notion  of  concealment,  it  will  not  serve  your 
purpose ;  but  nothing  of  concealment  is  implied  in  the 
Greek  word — Athanasius  extols  the  sagacity  of  the 
apostles  :  their  caution  he  never  mentions. 

9.  Btill  you  will  insist,  that  he  describes  the  thing, 
though  he  may  not  have  called  it  by  its  proper  name  : 
"  He  evidently,  you  say,  does  not  represent  them  a» 
deferring  the  communication  of  the  doctrine  of  the  di- 
vinity of  Christ,  on  account  of  its  being  more  conveni- 
ently taught  afterwards,  as  part  of  a  system  of  faith ; 
but  only,  lest  it  should  have  given  offence  to  the  Jews ;"{ 
I  cannot  read  this  sentence  without  astonishment,  when 
I  turn  back  to  the  quotation,  and  find  that  you  have 
fairly  produced  the  passage,  in  which  Athanasius,  in 
your  own  translation,  as  well  as  in  the  original,  affirms  5 


*  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  45.  f  See  page  187. 

i  Letters  to  Dr  Horsier,  p.  45. 


.  XL  TO  DR  PRIESTI..E> 


that  what  related  to  our  Lord's  humanity,  was  taught 
jirsty  for  no  other  reason,  but  that  the  doctrine  of  his 
divinity  might  be  taught  afterwards,  with  more  effect. 
The  desire  of  instructing  the  Jews,  not  the  fear  of  offen- 
ding them,  was  the  motive  with  the  apostles,  for  pro- 
pounding first  what  was  the  easiest  to  be  understood, 
and  the  most  likely  to  be  admitted. 

10.  But  whatever  the  motive  may  have  been  with 
the  apostles,  for  their  conduct,  you  insist  that  the  fact 
was,  that  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  was  not  divulged 
by  them  :  and  of  this  you  think  you  find  a  proof  in  this 
passage  of  Athanasius  5  in  which  you  think  it  is  con- 
fessed, that  the  apostles,  in  the  opening  of  their  minis- 
try, were  very  reserved  upon  this  article  ;  and  you  ob- 
serve, and  I  think  not  improperly,  that  the  reasons  for 
that  reserve  (if  they  ever  subsisted)  would  operate  till 
within  a  short  time  of  the  dispersion  and  death  of  the 
apostles.     Whence  you  conclude,  that  if  ever  they  di- 
vulged this  doctrine,  it  must  have  been  at  so  late  a  pe- 
riod, that  the  church,  in  consequence  of  their  former 
silence  upon  the  subjest,  must  have  been  fixed  in  the 
contrary  persuasion.* 

11.  But  what  if  the  foundation  of  this  whole  argu- 
ment should  be  rotten  ?  What  if  the  whole  should  be 
built  on  a  misinterpretation  of  Athanasius  ?  Athanasius 
affirms  not,  that  the  apostles,  in  any  period  of  their 
ministry,  kept  the  doctrine  of  our  Lord's  divinity  a 
secret  ;   or  that  they  were  reserved  upon  this,  or  any 
article  of  faith,  with  those  who  were  so  far  converted  as 
to  be  catechumens.     In  their  first  publick  sermons,  ad- 


*  Letters  to  Dr  Horslev,  p.  42—44. 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  XI 

dressed  to  the  unbelieving  multitude,  they  were  content 
to  maintain,  that  Jesus,  whom  the  Jews  had  crucified, 
was  riseu  from  the  dead  ;  without  touching  his  divinity 
otherwise,  than  in  remote  allusions :  but  to  suppose,  that 
they  carried  their  converts  no  greater  length,  is  to  sup. 
pose  that  their  private  instruction  was  not  more  parti, 
cular  than  their  publick :  for  this,  you  will  find  little 
support  in  Athanasius  ;  or  in  Chrysostom  ;  who  is  cal- 
led upon,  to  corroborate  the  argument  from  the  conces- 
sions of  Athanasius. 

13.  But  whatever  the  doctrine  of  the  apostles  might 
be ;  or  whatever  opinion  Athanasius,  or  Chrysostom, 
might  entertain  concerning  it ;  Athanasius,  it  seems  ac- 
knowledges, that  the  first  Jewish  Christians  were  Uni- 
tarians. Oi  roll  IttSflt/oi,  "  The  Jews  of  that  time,"  or, 
"  The  then  Jews,"  is  the  name,  by  which  the  persons 
are  described,  who  are  said  to  have  holden  the  errone- 
ous belief  of  the  mere  humanity  of  the  Messiah.  Now, 
Sir,  if  "The  then  Jews/'  O*  rolt  !»$«/<>/,  may  denote 
Jewish  Christians,  will  you  be  pleased  to  inform  me, 
what  more  precise  expressions  the  holy  father  might 
have  found,  in  the  whole  compass  of  the  Greek' lan- 
guage, to  denote  genuine  Jewish  Jews,  had  he  had  oc- 
casion to  mention  them?  But  the  verbs,  it  seems,  "  in 
that  part  of  the  passage  which  mentions,  Christ  being 
come  of  the  seed  of  David,  and  the  word  being  made 
flssh,  are  not  in  the  future  tense.9'*  In  this  remark, 
Sir,  1  cannot  but  admire  the  singular  caution  of  the  ex- 
pression, "  The  verbs are  not  in  the  future  tense." 

It  is  true,  they  are  not :  but  the  most  important  of  these 


Letters  to  l)r  Horslev,  p.  42. 


XL  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY.  ff>0j[ 

rerbs,  in  that  part  of  the  passage  which  mentions  the 
Messiah's  coming,  although  it  be  not  in  the  future  form, 
carries  a  future  signification — it  is  in  the  infinitive  mood 
of  the  present  tense ;  which  often  denotes  an  instant 
futurity,  but  never  denotes  time,  either  long  since,  or 
just  now,  past :  this  obtains  in  all  the  Greek  verbs, 
but  particularly  in  the  verb  *f>x°Pat  J  which,  not  only  by 
use,  but  naturally,  involves  a  notion  of  futurity  even 
in  the  present  tense.  Er^/^or  rov  X^/ror  >J//xcr  artyutrof 

povov £j>xt$«i.     "They  thought  the  Christ  was  a- 

coming  as  a  mere  man  only."  This  expression  re- 
fers to  the  Messiah  not  as  come,  but  as  coming  :  ano- 
ther verb,  I  confess,  which  relates  to  the  incarnation  of 
the  Word,  is  in  a  preterite  tense,  *&*  «n  *oyoe  e*ft  iym% 
tTnriyor.  "  Neither  believed  they,  that  the  word  was 
wade  ttesh."  6  Koyoc  <r&fi  tyertja,  '*  the  word  was  made 
flesh,"  these  are  Ue  words  in  which  St  John  mentions 
the  incarnation.  The  holy  father,  it  is  likely,  chose  to 
«se  the  very  words  of  the  evangelist,  in  speaking  of  this 
mystery ;  and  for  that  reason,  he  may  have  sacrificed 
somewhat  of  the  accuracy  of  his  syntax  to  the  exactness 
of  his  quotation.  The  passage  should  be  printed  thus  : 
*St  "  on  b  Aoyor  <rct$  iyiH%  iTrirwov.  In  this  grammatical 
argument,  your  prudence  appears,  not  only  in  the  very 
guarded  expressions,  in  which  you  have  stated  it;  but 
in  the  declaration,  with  which  it  is  prefaced,  that  you 
desire  to  lay  no  great  stress  upon  it.  What  you  have 
respect  to  in  this  passage,  "  is  the  obvious  general  tenor 
and  spirit  of  it  :"*  indeed,  Sir,  you  would  do  well  to 
be  cautious,  upon  all  occasions,  how  you  handle  these 


*  Letters  te  Dr  Horsley,  p.  42 

26 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  XI. 

briars  of  criticism :  l«t  us  return  then  to  the  general 
tenor  of  the  passage. 

13.  You  know,  Sir,  that  Jews  are  twice  mentioned 
in  it.  "  The  Jews  of  that  age  being  deceived  them- 
selves, and  having  deceived  the  Gentiles."  And  again, 

" the  blessed  apostles taught  what  related  to 

the  humanity  of  our  Saviour  to  the  Jews."  Is  it  your 
opinion,  Sir,  that  they  are  the  same,  or  different  persons, 
who  are  mentioned  under  the  name  of  Jews,  in  these 
two  different  clauses  ?  If  they  are  different  persons,  I 
desire  to  know,  what  circumstance  or  note  of  difference, 
you  find  in  the  author's  expressions?  If  you  find  none, 
on  what  is  your  opinion  of  a  difference  founded  ?  Or,  not 
to  entangle  you  again  in  grammatical  disquisitions,  I 
will  for  a  moment  suppose  the  persons  different,  and 
desire  you  to  show  me,  what  will  then  be  the  sense  or 
coherence  of  the  writer's  argument?  If  you  allow,  that 
the  same  persons  are  designed  in  both  places  under  the 
same  name  ;  I  must  desire  you  to  remark,  that  the 
Jews,  mentioned  in  the  second  instance,  were  persons 
who  were  "  at  any  rate  to  be  persuaded  (a*  any  rate, 
that  is  the  force  of  oxw;  which  you  have  erroneously 
rendered  by  the  word  fully)  at  any  rate  to  be  persua- 
ded, from  the  actual  state  of  things,  and  from  the  evi- 
dence of  the  miracles  which  had  been  wrought,  that  the 
Christ  was  come.*"  Could  these,  Sir,  be  converted 
Jews  ?  Could  they  be  already  Christians,  in  whom  this 
general  persuasion,  "  that  the  Christ  was  come,"  was 
yet  to  be  wrought  ?  Wanting  this  persuasion,  they  wera 


LET.  XI.  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY.  203 

clearly  Jews,  whose  conversion  was  not  yet  began  ;  and 
of  the  same  description,  since  they  were  indeed  the  very 
same  persons,  were  the  Jews,  to  whom  it  is  imputed, 
that  they  held  the  erroneous  belief  of  the  Messiah's 
mere  humanity,  and  that  they  spread  the  like  error 
among  the  Gentiles. 

14.  But  the  Gentiles,  you  say,  who  were  thus  misled, 
must  have  been  Christian  Gentiles  ;  and  by  consequence 
the  Jews,  who  misled  them,  were  Jewish  Christians.* 
But,  Sir,  whence  is  the  certainty  that  Christian  Gen- 
tiles  were  intended  by  Athanasius  ?  It  hangs  upon  this 
principle,  that  to  any  other  Gentiles,  the  whole  doc- 
trine of  a  Messiah  must  have  been  uninteresting.f 
Have  you  forgotten,  Sir,  have  you  never  known,  or 
Would  you  deny,  what  is  not  denied  by  candid  infidels, 
that  the  expectation  of  a  great  deliverer,  or  benefactor 
of  mankind,  was  unh  crsal  even  in  the  Gentile  world, 
about  the  time  of  our  Lord's  appearance  ?  Jf  you  ac- 
knowledge this,  where  is  the  improbability,  that  the 
general  opinion  concerning  this  personage,  should  be 
modified  by  the  opinions  which  prevailed  in  Judea, 
which  was  the  centre  of  the  tradition  ?  especially  when 
it  is  considered,  that  the  proselytes  of  the  gate,  made 
an  easy  channel  of  communication,  between  the  Jews 
and  the  idolatrous  Gentiles !  but  whatever  you  may 
be  disposed  to  grant,  or  to  deny,  this  argument  is  easily 
inverted,  and  turned  against  you.  It  hath  been  shown, 
that  none  but  Jew  Jews  can  be  intended  by  Athanasius, 
when  he  speaks  of  the  Jews  as  misleaders  of  the  Gen- 


*  Letters  to  Dr  Henley,  p.  41. 


LETTEK8  IN  REPLY  LET.  XL 

tiles — they  were  Gentile  Gentiles,  therefore,  who  were 
tousled ;  for,  from  unbelieving  Jews,  Christians  of  tha 
Gentiles  would  hardly  take  instruction. 

15.  Your  last  resource  is,  to  flee  for  shelter  to  the 
authority  of  Beausobre.  "  The  leariied  Beausobre,  a 
Trinitarian,  and  therefore  an  unexceptionable  judge  in 
this  case,  quoting  this  very  passage,  does  not  hesitate 
to  pronounce,  that  they  were  believing  Jews,  who  were 
intended  by.  the  writer."*  It  is  for  you,  Sir,  to  judge, 
what  deference  is  due  from  you  to  the  authority  of  Beau- 
sobre, for  my  own  part,  I  shall  not  affect  a  modesty 
which  I  feel  not,  when  the  sense  of  a  Greek  sentence  is 
the  thing  in  question,  if  I  have  the  writer  upon  ray  own 
shelf,  or  can  find  him  upon  my  friend's,  it  is  not  much 
my  practice  to  stand  bowing  at  a  distance  to  authorities ; 
unless  indeed  it  be  the  authority  of  a  Casaubon,  a  Sea* 
liger,  or  a  Bentley :  but  these  men  would  laugh,  or 
they  would  storm,  at  your  attempts  to  construe  Greek, 
with  Beausobre  at  your  elbow.  To  construe  Greek  ! 
I  fear,  Sir,  they  would  think  but  lightly  of  your  Latin 
erudition,  after  the  specimen  which  you  have  given  of 
it,  in  your  attempt  to  wrest  from  my  learned  ally,  his 
strong  argument  for  the  difference  which  we  assert,  in 
articles  of  faith,  between  the  Nazarenes  and  the  Ebion- 
ites.  The  feats  of  criticism  which  you  have  performed 
for  this  purpose,  upon  certain  plain  words  of  Jerome,f 
to  draw  them  from  the  only  meaning  of  which  they 
are  capable,  had  you  been  a  "Westminster  man,  were 
enough  to  bring  old  Busby  from  his  grave  :  but,  alas ! 


*  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  42.        f  DM*  P- 153—158. 


LET.  XI  TO  Dtt  PRIESTLEY.  805 

Sir,  you  are  not  to  be  persuaded,  though  one  should 
rise  from  the  dead.  I  trust  our  readers  are  persuaded, 
that  the  argument  from  Athanasius*  was,  with  great 
justice  and  propriety,  placed  among  my  specimens  of 
insufficient  proof. 

I  am,  Sfc. 


*  Of  the  testimonies  of  other  writer*,  by  which  Dr  Priestley  attempts  to  con- 
firm  his  argument  from  Athanasius,  see  the  tenth  of  his  second  Letters  to  me, 
and  my  Remarks  upon  his  second  Letters,  Part  U.  e.  i,  sec.  10—14. 


306  LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  Xll. 


LETTER  TWELFTH. 

In  Reply  to  Dr  Priestley's  fifth  ;  in  which  he  moves 
certain  chronological  difficulties. — Himself  chiefly 
concerned  to  find  the  solution. — His  question  divided. 
— The  divinity  of  our  Lord,  preached  from  the  very 
beginning,  by  the  apostles. — St  Stephen  a  martyr  to 
this  doctrine. — His  dying  ejaculations  justify  the 
worship  of  Christ. — Christ  deified  in  the  story  of 
St  Paul's  conversion. — The  divinity  of  Jesus  ackow- 
ledged  by  the  apostles,  from  the  time  when  they  ac- 
knowledged him  for  the  Messiah. — Notions  of  a 
Trinity,  and  of  the  Deity  of  the  Messiah,  current 
among  the  Jews  in  the  days  of  our  Saviour. 

DEAR  SIR. 

IN  your  fifth  letter,  you  call  upon  me  to  assign  the 
particular  time,  when  the  knowledge  of  our  Lord's  di- 
vinity, which,  in  the  persuasion,  that  the  apostles  were 
taxed  by  the  fathers  with  a  reserve  upon  the  subject, 
you  are  pleased  to  call  "  the  great  secret  of  Christ  be- 
ing not  a  mere  man,  but  the  eternal  God  ;"*  you  call 
upon  me  to  assign  the  time,  when  this  great  secret  u  was 
communicated  first  to  the  apostles,  and  then  by  them  to 


*  Letters  to  Dr  Horsle^,  p.  55. 


LET.  XII.  TO  DR.  PR1ESTLET.  20? 

the  body  of  Christians."*  You  "  request  my  opinion" 
upon  this  question,  with  a  certain  air  of  triumph,  which 
•eems  to  imply,  that,  in  your  apprehension,  I  must  be 
much  at  a  loss  to  frame  an  opinion  upon  it,  which  may 
be  consistent  with  my  creed.  But  the  truth  is,  that 
you  are  yourself  the  person  most  concerned  to  find  the 
solution.  Or,  to  express  myself  more  accurately,  the 
question  splits  into  two,  of  which,  the  one  concerns  not 
me,  and  the  other  concerns  not  either  of  us. 

2.  YV  hen  was  the  doctrine  of  our  Lord's  divinity,  first 
published  in  the  church  by  the  apostles  ? 

3.  When  was  the  knowledge  of  the  thing,  first  con- 
veyed to  the  minds  of  the  apostles  themselves  ? 

4.  These,  Sir,  are  two  distinct  questions.     Of  the 
first,  it  is  your  concern,  not  mine,  to  seek  the  solution  : 
for  since  1  have  clearly  traced  the  belief  of  Christ's  pro- 
per deity  up  to  the  apostolick  age  ;  unless  you  can  as- 
sign the  particular  epocha  of  the  publication,  1  have  a 
right  to  conclude,  that  it  was  a  part  of  the  very  earliest 
doctrine :  nay,  if  you  should  even  be  able  to  assign 
some  later  time  of  its  commencement,  yet  since  that  time 
must  fall  within  the  compass  of  the  apostolick  age,  to 
which  you  are  limited,  by  virtue  of  my  proof  from  the 
epistle  of  St  Barnabas,  a  question  might  indeed  arise, 
which  might  be  of  difficult  resolution — why  was  this 
doctrine,  for  a  certain  time,  kept  back  ?  But  this  diffi- 
culty would  not  shake  the  credit  of  the  doctrine  ;  for 
since  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose,  that  any  of  the 
apostles,  having  once  received  the  light  of  inspiration, 
were,  in  any  future  period  of  their  lives,  deprived  of  il, 


*  Letters  to  Dr  Horslef,  p.  55. 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  XII. 

any  doctrine  published  by  them,  claims  implicit  credit, 
whatever  might  be  the  time  of  its  first  publication.  A 
discovery  that  St  John  had  made,  in  the  last  moments  of 
his  life,  had  been  equally  to  be  believed,  as  any  thing 
that  St  Peter  preached,  in  his  first  sermon,  on  the  day 
of  Pentecoast.  You  will  therefore  choose  your  own 
epocha,  for  the  discovery  of  "  the  great  secret."  Place 
it,  where  it  best  may  please  you  in  the  apostolick  age ; 
I  will  hold  no  argument  with  you  upon  the  subject :  In 
my  own  congregations,  I  shall  think  it  my  duty  to  bear 
my  witness,  that,  from  the  very  beginning  of  the  gospel, 
the  thing  had  been  no  secret :  for  proof  from  holy 
writ,  I  shall  have  recourse  to  those  very  passages  of  the 
apostolick  history,  from  which  you  draw  the  contrary 
inference.  1  shall  remind  my  hearers,  that  in  St  Peter's 
first  publick  sermon,  when  it  was  reasonable  to  keep 
to  the  general  assertion,  that  Jesus  was  the  Messiah, 
rather  than  to  enter  into  the  particulars  which  that  cha- 
racter might  involve;  allusions  are  nevertheless  used, 
which  discover,  that  the  mind  of  the  speaker  was  strong. 
ly  impressed  with  notions,  which  it  was  his  policy  to 
conceal.  I  shall  particularly  desire  them  to  remark, 
that  it  is  said  of  our  Lord  Jesus,  that  "  it  was  not  pos- 
sible that  he  should  be  holden  of  death  :"*  the  expres- 
sions clearly  imply  a  physical  impossibility  :  I  shall  bid 
them  observe,  that  the  great  miracle  of  that  day  is  said 
to  be,  an  exertion  of  the  power  of  Jesus  exalted  by 
God's  right  hand  :f  and  I  shall  maintain,  that  the  three 
persons  are  distinctly  mentioned,  in  a  manner  which 
implies  the  divinity  of  each,  "  Jesus — being  by  the  right 


*  Acts  u.  24.  Ibkl-  "•  3Z>  33- 


LET.  SIT.  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 

hand  of  God  exalted,  and  having  received  of  the  Father 
the  promise  of  the  Holy  Ghost"* — of  the  Father — n*f<* 
r*  ir*l$K  — TJie  Father:  the  substantive,  with  the  article 
prefixed,  describes  a  person,  whose  character  it  is  to  be 
the  Father — Paternity  is  the  property,  which  indivi- 
duates the  person  :  but  from  whom  is  the  first  principle 
thus  distinguished  ?  From  his  creatures  ?  From  them  he 
were  more  significantly  distinguished  by  the  name  of 
God.  Not  generally  therefore  from  his  creatures,  but 
particularly,  from  the  two  other  persons  mentioned  in 
the  same  period — Jesus  and  the  Holy  Ghost.  And 
since  this  is  his  distinction,  that  he  is  the  Father  of  that 
Son,  from  whom,  together  with  lmn«olf,  flip  Holy  Ghost 
proceeds ;  it  follows,  that  the  interval,  between  him  and 
them,  is  no  more  than  relation  may  create ;  that  tlm 
whole  difference  lies  in  personal  distinctions,  not  in 
essential  qualities.  Thus  I  will  ever  reason,  Sir.  for 
the  edification  of  my  own  flock,  but  with  little  Lope  of 
your  conviction  from  St  Peter's  first  sermon. 

5.  I  shall  always  insist,  Sir,  that  the  blessed  Stephen 
died  a  martyr  to  the  DEITY  of  Christ.  The  accusation 
against  him,  you  say,  was  "  his  speaking  blasphemous 
tilings  against  the  temple  and  the  lawf" — you  have  for- 
gotten  to  add  the  charge  of  blasphemy  "  against  Moses 
and  against  God."J  The  blasphemy  against  the  tem- 
ple and  the  law,  probably  consisted  in  a  prediction,  that 
the  temple  was  to  be  destroyed,  and  the  ritual  law,  of 
course,  abolished :  the  blasphemy  against  Moses,  was 
probably  his  assertion,  that  the  authority  of  Moses  was 


Acts  ii  S2,  33.    f  Letters  to  Dr  Howley,  p.  CO. 
ActtYi.  11. 

27 


210  LETTBR8INREPJA  LET,  XlL 

inferior  to  that  of  Christ :  but  what  could  be  the  bias- 
phemy  against  God  ?  What  was  there  in  the  doctrine 
of  the  apostles,  which  could  be  interpreted  as  blasphemy 
against  God,  except  it  was  this,  that  they  ascribed  di- 
vinity to  one,  who  had  suffered  publickly  as  a  malefac- 
tor— that  this  was  the  blessed  Stephen's  crime,  none 
can  doubt,  who  attends  to  the  conclusion  of  the  story. 
He  "  looked  up  stedfastly  into  heaven,"  says  the  in- 
spired  historian,  "  and  saw  the  glory  of  God,"  [that  is, 
he  saw  the  splendour  of  the  Shechinah,  for  that  is  what  is 
meant,  when  the  glory  of  God  is  mentioned  as  some- 
thing to  be  seen,]  «  and  Jesus  standing  on  the  right  hand 
of  God"* — He  saw  the,  man,  Jesus,  in  the  midst  of  this 
divine  light :  his  declaring  what  he  saw,f  the  Jewish 
rabble  understood,  as  an  assertion  of  the  divinity  of 
Jesus :  they  stopped  their  ears  ;  they  overpowered  his 
Voice  with  their  own  clamours ;  and  they  hurried  him  out 
of  the  city,  to  inflict  upon  him  the  death,  which  the  law 
appointed  for  blasphemers.}  He  died,  as  he  had  lived, 
attesting  the  deity  of  our  crucified  Master.  His  last 
breath  was  uttered  in  a  prayer  to  Jesus,  first  for  himself, 
and  then  for  his  murderers.  "They  stoned  Stephen, 
calling  upon  God,  and  saying,  Lord  Jesus  receive  my 
spirit — and  he  cried  with  a  loud  voice,  Lord,  lay  not 
this  sin  to  their  charge."  ||  It  is  to  be  noted,  that  the 
word  God  is  not  in  the  original  text,  which  might  be 
better  rendered,  thus ;  «  They  stoned  Stephen,  invoca- 
ting  and  saying,  &c."  Jesus  therefore  was  the  God, 
whom  the  dying  martyr  invocated  in  his  last  ago* 


*  Acts  vii.  55.  f  lbid-  S6« 

*  Ibid.  57,  58.  II  Ibid.  59,  60. 


LET.  Ztt  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 

nies ;  when  men  are  apt  to  pray,  with  the  utmost  seri- 
ousness, to  him  whom  they  conceive  the  mightiest  to 
save. 

6.  It  seems  the  holy  Stephen,  full,  as  we  are  inform- 
ed  he  was  in  t those  trying  moments,  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
was  not  in  the  opinion  which  you  are  pleased  to  impute 
to  me ;  but  you  will  observe,  that  I  disclaim  it,  that 
"the  proper  object  of  prayer,  is  God  the  Father."* 
This,  you  tell  me,  1  cannot  but  acknowledge.  That 
the  Father  is  a  proper  object  of  prayer,  God  forbid  that 
ever  I  should  not  acknowledge :  that  he  is  the  proper 
object,  in  the  sense  in  which  you  seem  to  make  the  as- 
sertion, in  prejudice  and  exclusion  of  the  other  persons, 
God  forbid  that  ever  I  should  concede  :  I  deny  not,  that 
there  is  an  honour  personally  due  to  him  as  the  Father; 
there  is  also  an  honour  personally  due  to  the  Son,  as 
the  Son ;  and  to  the  Spirit,  as  the  Spirit :  but  our 
knowledge  of  the  personal  distinctions  is  so  obscure,  in 
comparison  of  our  apprehension  of  the  general  attributes 
of  the  Godhead  ;  that  it  should  seem,  that  the  Divinity 
[the  rt  Siw]  is  rather  to  be  generally  worshipped,  in  the 
three  persons  jointly  and  indifferently,  than  that  any 
distinct  honours  are  to  be  oflered  to  each  separately. 
Prayer,  however,  for  succour  against  external  perse- 
cution,  seems  addressed  with  particular  propriety  to 
the  Son. 

7.  When  you  deny,  not  only  that  any  precept,  but 
that  any  proper  example  is  to  be  found  in  Scripture  to 
authorise  the  practice  ;f  you  seem  to  have  forgotten,  be- 


•  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  tl. 
t 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  XII. 

side  many  other  passages,  the  initial  salutations  of  Sfc 
Paul's  epistles :  St  Stephen's  "  short  ejaculatory  ad- 
dress" you  had  not  forgotten  ;  but  you  say,  "  it  is  very 
inconsiderable  :"*    but,   Sir,   why   is    it  inconsidera- 
ble ?  Is  it  because  it  was  only  an  ejaculation  ?  Eja- 
culations are  often  prayers  of  the  most  fervent  kind ; 
the  most  expressive  of  self-abasement  and  adoration : 
—Is  it  for  its  brevity  that  it  is  inconsiderable?  What 
then  is  the  precise  length  of  words,  which  is  requisite 
to  make  a  prayer  an  act  of  worship  ?  Was  this  peti- 
tion preferred  on  an  occasion  of  distress,  on  which  a 
Divinity  might  be  naturally  invoked  ?  Was  it  a  peti- 
tion for  succour,  which  none  but  a  Divinity  could  grant? 
If  this  was  the  case,  it  was  surely  an  act  of  worship. 
Is  the  situation  of  the  worshipper,  the  circumstance  which, 
in  your  judgment,  Sir,  lessens  the  authority  of  his  ex- 
ample ?  You  suppose  perhaps  some  consternation  of  his 
faculties,  arising  from  distress  and  fear — the  history 
justifies  no  such  supposition  :  it  describes  the  utterance 
of  the  final  prayer,  as  a  deliberate  act  of  one  who  knew 
his  situation,  and  possessed  his  understanding:  after 
praying  for  himself,  he  kneels  down  to  pray  for  his 
persecutors  ;   and  such  was  the  composure  with  which 
he  died,  although  the  manner  of  his  death  was  the  most 
tumultuous  and  terrifying,  that,  as  if  he  had  expired 
quietly  upon  his  bed,  the  sacred  historian  says,  that 
"  he  fell  asleep."!     If  therefore  you  would  insinuate, 
that  St  Stephen  was  not  himself,  when  he  sent  forth 
this  "  short  ejaculatory  address  to  Christ,"  the  history 


*  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  81. 
f  Acts  Tii.  60. 


LET.  X1L  TO  DR  PRIESTLKY. 

refutes  you.  If  he  was  himself,  you  cannot  justify  his 
prayer  to  Christ,  \vhile  you  deny  that  Christ  is  God, 
upon  any  principle  that  might  not  equally  justify  you, 
or  me,  in  praying  to  the  blessed  Stephen.  If  St  Ste- 
phen, in  the  full  possession  of  his  faculties,  prayed  to 
him  who  is  no  God ;  why  do  we  reproach  the  pious 
Romanist,  when  he  chaunts  the  litany  of  his  saints  ? 
If  the  persuasion  of  Christ's  divinity  prompted  the  holy 
martyr's  dying  prayer  ;  then  there  is  no  room  to  doubt, 
but  that  the  assertion  of  Christ's  divinity  was  the  blas- 
phemy, for  which  the  Jews,  hardened  in  their  unbelief, 
condemned  him. 

8.  Another  instance,  to  which  I  ever  shall  appeal,  of 
an  early  preaching  of  our  Lord's   divinity,  though  it 
may  not  conduce  to  your  conviction,  is  the  story  of  St 
Paul's  conversion  ;  in  which,  as  it  is  twice  related  by 
himself,  Jesus  is  deified  in  the  highest  terms.     I  know 
not,  Sir,  in  what  light  this  transaction  may  appear  to 
you ;  to  me,  I  confess,  it  appears  to  have  been  a  re- 
petition of  the  scene  at  the  bush,  heightened  in  terror 
and  solemnity — Instead  of  a  lambent  flame,  appearing 
to  a  solitary  shepherd  amid  the  thickets  of  the  wilder- 
ness ;  the  full  effulgence  of  the  Shechiua,  overpowering 
the  splendour  of  the  mid-day  sun,  bursts  upon  the  com- 
missioners of  the  Sanhedrim,  on  the  publick  road  to 
Damascus,  within  a  small  distance  of  the  city :  Jesus 
speaks,  and  is  spoken  to,  as  the  Divinity  inhabiting 
that  glorious  light :  nothing  can  exceed  the  tone  of  au- 
thority on  the  one  side,  the  submission  and  religious 
dread  upon  the  other :  the  recital  of  this  story,  seems  to 
have  been  the  usual  prelude  to  the  apostle's  publick 
apologies  ;  but  it  only  proved  the  means  of  heightening 
the  resentment  of  his  incredulous  countrymen. 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  Xft. 

9.  These  instances,  Sir,  will  bear  me  out  in  the  as- 
sertion, that  our  Lord's  divinity  was  preached  from  the 
very  beginning,  till  you  can  fix  the  first  discovery  to 
some  later  epocha  :  I  am,  therefore,  not  at  all  concern- 
ed in  the  solution  of  your  first  question. 

10.  The  second,  "  when  was  the  knowledge  of  our 
Lord's  divinity  first  imparted  to  the  minds  of  the  apos- 
tles?" is  wholly  insignificant,  and  uninteresting  to  all 
parties  :  it  concerns  not  me ;  because,  with  my  notions 
of  inspiration,  I  am  obliged  to  believe  what  the  inspired 
apostles  taught,  however  late  the  time  might  be  when 
they  themselves  received  their  information :  it  concerns 
not  you  ;  because,  with  your  notions  of  inspiration,  you 
are  at  liberty  to  dispute  what  the  inspired  apostles 
taught,  whatever   pretensions  they  may  have  to   the 
earliest  information.    If  the  knowledge  was  infallible 
which  they  received  from  inspiration,  it  matters  not  how 
late  ;  if  not  infallible,  it  matters  not  how  early  they  re- 
ceived it :  if  no  positive  proof  were  extant,  that  the 
deity  of  Christ  was  an  article  of  faith  among  the  first 
Christians ;  the  difficulty  of  assigning  the  precise  time, 
when  the  apostles  were  first  made  aquainted  with  it, 
might  be  something  of  an  objection  against  the  anti- 
quity of  the  doctrine,  and  against  its  truth ;  but  in  oppo- 
sition to  direct  proof,  the  objection,  were  it  founded, 
could  have  no  weight. 

11.  Upon  this  question  therefore,  as  the  former,  you 
must  not  take  it  amiss  if  I  leave  you  to  yourself.     Choose 
any  time,  within  the  compass  of  each  apostle's  life,  for 
the  epocha  of  his  illumination  :  I  will  hold  no  argument 
upon  the  subject ;  although  I  have  an  opinion  upon  the 
question,  as  upon  the  former,  which  1  ever  shall  inculcate 
in  my  own  congregation :  and  this,  Sir,  happens  to  be  the 


LET.  XII.  TO  DR  PR1ESTLBY.  £15 

very  reverse  of  that,  which  you  imagine  I  must  allow, 
« You  must  allow,"  you  say  to  me,  « that  at  first  the 
apostles  were  wholly  ignorant  of  this."*  At  Jlrst  in- 
deed, before  their  acquaintance  with  our  Lord,  or  at 
least  with  the  Baptist,  they  were  ignorant,  I  believe,  of 
every  thing ;  but  from  their  first  acknowledgment  of  our 
Jjord  as  the  Messiah,  they  equally  acknowledged  his 
divinity :  their  faith,  I  believe,  was  but  unsettled,  as 
their  notions  of  the  Messiah's  kingdom  were  certainly 
very  confused,  till  the  descent  of  the  Holy  Ghost ;  but 
so  far  as  they  believed  in  Jesus  as  the  Messiah,  in  the 
game  degree  they  understood  and  acknowledged  his  di- 
vinity :  the  proof,  which  I  have  to  produce  of  this,  from 
holy  writ,  consists  of  too  many  particulars,  to  be  dis- 
tinctly enumerated  in  the  course  of  our  present  corres- 
pondence ;  I  shall  mention  two,  which,  to  any  but  a 
decided  Unitarian,  will  be  very  striking :  Nathaniel's 
first  profession,  and  Peter's  consternation  at  the  miracu- 
lous draught  of  fishes.  It  was  in  Nathaniel's  very  first 
interview  with  our  Lord,  that  he  exclaimed,  "  Rabbi, 
thou  art  the  Sou  of  God !  thou  art  the  king  of  Israel  !"f 
and  this  declaration  was  drawn  from  Nathaniel,  by 
some  particulars  in  our  Lord's  discourse,  which  he 
seems  to  have  interpreted  as  indications  of  Omniscience. 
When  Simon  Peter  saw  the  number  of  fishes  taken,  at 
a  single  draught,  when  the  net  was  cast  at  our  Lord's 
command,  after  a  night  of  fruitless  toil ;  *'  he  fell  down 
at  the  knees  of  Jesus,  saying,  depart  from  me,  for  I  am 
a  sinful  man,  O  Lord."J  Peter's  consternation  was  evi- 


*  Letters  to  Dr  Horaley,  p.  5Q. 
+  John  i.  49.  *  Luke  r.  8. 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LEY.  XT/ 

clently  of  the  same  sort,  of  which  we  read  in  the  wor- 
thies of  earlier  ages,  upon  any  extraordinary  appearance 
of  the  light  of  the  Shechinah,  which  was  founded  on  a 
notion,  that  a  sinful  mortal  might  not  see  God  and  live. 
These,  and  many  other  passages  of  the  evangelical  histo- 
ry, discover  that  our  Lord's  associates,  although  it  was 
not  till  after  his  ascension,  that  the  Holy  Ghost  led 
them  into  all  truth  ;  had  an  early  apprehension,  of  some- 
thing more  than  human  in  his  character.  Nor  indeed 
were  early  intimations  of  it  wanting  :  in  the  first  annun- 
ciation of  his  birth,  by  the  angelick  host ;  in  the  Bap- 
tist's declarations ;  and  in  our  Lord's  own  assertions  of 
a  power  to  forgive  sins,  and  of  an  authority  to  dispense 
with  ordinances  of  divine  appointment ;  and  in  his  claim 
to  be  the  proper  Son  of  God,  which  the  unbelieving 
Jews  ever  understood,  as  an  express  deification  of  his 
own  person. 

12.  But  Judas  Iscariot,  you  think,  "  could  not  possi- 
bly have  formed  a  deliberate  purpose  of  betraying  our 
Lord/'*  had  the  belief  of  his  divinity  been  general 
among  the  apostles,  before  his  crucifiction :  or,  had 
any  such  pretension  been  set  up,  which  had  not  gained 
belief,  Judas  would  have  taken  advantage  of  the  impo- 
sition, and  would  have  made  a  discovery  of  it  to  the 
prejudice  of  our  Lord.  It  should  seem,  Sir,  that  you 
think  your  own  cause  almost  desperate,  if  you  would 
desire  that  Judas  Iscariot  should  be  admitted  as  an  evi- 
dence for  you,  or  as  an  advocate — but,  what  if  your 
cause  should  turn  out  to  be,  what  Judas  Iscariot  him- 
self would  scruple  to  undertake?  I  would  not  willingly 


*  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  58, 


LET.  X1L  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 

be  the  apologist  of  that  traitor ;  but  I  am  inclined  to 
think,  that,  traitor  as  he  was,  his  intentions  went  not  to 
the  mischief  which  he  effected :  it  was  rather  perhaps 
his  meaning,  to  cheat  the  chief  priests  of  their  money, 
than  actually  to  sell  his  Master's  life.  When  he  bar- 
gained to  lead  them,  for  a  certain  sum,  to  the  place  of 
our  Lord's  retirement ;  he  thought,  perhaps,  that  ha 
might  safely  trust  to  his  Master's  power,  to  repel  any 
attack  upon  his  person.  This  is  very  consistent  with  a 
belief  of  our  Lord's  divinity ;  as  the  most  dishonoura- 
ble designs  are  often  found,  to  consist  with  the  truest 
speculative  principles :  that  he  meant  not  the  mischief 
\vhich  ensued,  may  be  presumed,  from  the  remorse 
which  followed,  arid  the  vengeance  which,  in  despair, 
he  executed  upon  himself.  But  I  care  little  about  his 
testimony,  only,  T  think,  that,  with  the  devils  he  might 
believe  and  tremble,  and  trembling,  might  be  still  a 
devil. 

13.  After  all,  Sir,  I  might  have  spared  so  particular 
an  answer  as  I  have  given  to  your  fifth  letter ;  in  the 
conclusion  of  it,  you  furnish  me  with  a  short  reply,  of 
which  I  might  have  availed  myself.  "  Had  there  beeu 
any  pretence,"  you  say,  "  for  imagining  that  the  Jews 
in  our  Saviour's  time  had  any  knowledge  of  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Trinity,  and  that  they  expected  the  second 
person  in  it,  in  the  character  of  their  Messiah,  the  ques- 
tion I  propose  to  you  would  have  been  needless."  * 
Then,  Sir,  the  question  which  you  propose  to  me,  is 
needless.  The  Jews,  in  Christ's  days,  had  notions  of 
a  Trinity  in  the  Divine  nature  :  they  expected  the  sec. 


*  Letten  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  64. 

28 


LBTTEUS  IN  KKl'Lt  L&T.  XII 

ond  person,  whom  they  called  the  Logos,  to  come  as 
the  Messiah  :  for  the  proof  of  these  assertions,  I  refer 
you  to  the  work  of  the  learned  Dr  Peter  Allix,  entitled, 
The  Judgment  of  the  Ancient  Jewish  Church  against 
the  Unitarians,  a  work  which,  it  is  to  he  hoped,  Sir, 
you  will  carefully  look  through,  before  you  send  abroad 
your  intended  view  of  the  doctrine  of  the  first  ages  con. 
cerning  Christ*  That  you  will  be  convinced  by  Dr 
Allix's  proof,  I  have  indeed  little  hope ;  I  shall  produce, 
however,  another  authority,  to  which  you  will  perhaps 
be  more  inclined  to  pay  regard  :  the  authority  of  a 
learned  Unitarian  of  the  last  century,  who  wrote  in 
vindication  of  a  former  Unitarian  work,  of  great  fame, 
called  TJie  Naked  Gospel.  The  Naked  Gospel,  you 
know  was  printed  at  Oxford,  in  the  year  1690,  and  was 
burnt  the  same  year,  by  order  of  the  convocation.  The 
anonymous  author  of  the  Historical  Vindication,  was 
supposed  to  be  Le  Clerc  ;  he  it  is,  who  says  in  his  pre. 
face,  that  the  platonick  enthusiasm  crept  first  into  the 
Jewish,  afterwards  into  the  Christian  church — then  he 
tells  his  readers,  how  the  Jews  picked  up  their  Platon- 
ism,  of  which,  he  says,  the  principal  doctrines  were  two : 
the  one,  that  of  the  preexistence  of  souls ;  the  other,  that 
of  the  Divine  Trinity.  These,  he  says,  were  the  opin- 
ions of  the  Jews  in  the  days  of  our  Saviour  and  his 
apostles  :  and  hence,  perhaps,  it  hath  come  to  pass, 
that,  as  the  learned  have  observed,  certain  Platonick 
phrases  and  expressions  are  to  be  found  in  the  New 
Testament,  especially,  in  St  John's  Gospel.  You,  Sir, 
and  this  Unitarian  brother,  seem  to  agree  but  ill  in  your 


*  Preface  to  Letters,  p.  xvlii. 


LET.  XII.  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 

notions  of  the  doctrine  of  the  first  ages.  He  thought  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity  one  of  the  ancient  corruptions  of 
Judaism ;  which,  in  laying  the  foundations  of  Christian- 
ity, the  heaven-taught  builders,  some  how  or  other,  for- 
got to  do  away  :  you  have  discovered,  that  every  no- 
tion of  the  Trinity,  whatever  may  be  fancied  with  res- 
pect to  more  ancient  times,  was  obliterated  from  the 
minds  of  the  Jews,  in  our  Saviour's  time.*  I  believe, 
Sir,  I  shall  never  sit  down  to  the  task,  which  you  de- 
sire me  to  undertake, — a  translation  of  the  works  of 
Bishop  Bull  :f  for  as  his  argument  is  not  for  the  un- 
learned, the  labour  would  be  thrown  away — a  work 
which  might  be  more  generally  edifying,  and  in  which 
I  might  engage,  if  it  were  not  that  I  really  grudge  every 
moment  which  1  give  to  controversy,  would  be, — a  har- 
mony of  the  Unitarian  divines* 

14s,  You  will  ask  me,  whence  was  the  offence,  which 
the  assertion  of  our  Lord's  divinity,  by  my  own  confes- 
sion, gave  the  Jewish  people,  if  divinity  made  a  part  of 
their  own  notion  of  the  Messiah's  character  ?  I  answer, 
the  deification  of  the  Messiah  was  not  that  which  gave 
offence,  but  the  assertion,  that  a  crucified  man  was  that 
divine  person  :  and  before  his  crucifixion,  the  meanness 
of  his  birth  gave  an  offence,  less  in  degree,  but  of  the 
same  kind. 

I  am,  &c. 


*  Letters  to  Dr  llowley,  p.  64. 

T   IVid,  p.  113. 


LETTERS  IK  REPLY  LET.  Xlll. 


LETTER  THIRTEENTH. 

In  Reply  to  Dr  Priestley's  sixth. — Dr  Priestley's  ig- 
norance of  the  true  principles  of  Platonism,  appears 
in  his  disquisitions  concerning  matter  and  spirit. — 
T7ie  equality  and  unity  of  the  three  principles  of  the 
Platonists. — Dr  Priestley's  peculiar  sense  of  the 
word  personification,  not  perceived  either  by  the  arch- 
d&acon,  or  the  reviewer. — The  outline,  however,  of 
Dr  Priestley's  work,  not  misrepresented  by  the  arch- 
deacon.— The  conversion  of  an  attribute  into  a  sub- 
stance, differs  not  from  a  creation  out  of  nothing. — 
Never  taught  by  the  Platonists. — The  eternity  of  the 
Logos,  independent  of  any  supposed  eternity  of  the 
world. — Not  discarded  therefore  by  the  converted 
Platonists. — J)r  Priestley's  arguments,  from  the 
analogy  between  the  divine  Logos  and  human  reason, 
answered. — TJie  archdeacon  abides  by  his  assertion, 
that  Dr  Priestley  hath  misrepresented  the  PlatonicJc 
language. — The  archdeacon's  interpretation  of  the 
Platonists  rests  not  on  his  own  conjecture,  but  on  the 
authority  of  Jlthenagoras. —  Confirmed  by  other  au- 
thorities.— Dr  Priestley's  quotations  from  Tertullian 
considered. — From  Lactantius. 

DEAR  SIR. 

YOU  must  forgive  me,  if  I  confess  to  you,  that  so 
long  since  as  when  I  first  read  your  disquisitions  con- 
cerning matter  and  spirit,  I  formed  no  very  high  opinion 


LET.  XIII  TO  DR.  PRIESTLEY. 

of  your  learning  in  the  Platonick  philosophy.  What 
gave  me  my  first  suspicion,  as  I  well  remember,  was  a 
surprise  which  you  express,  that  a  certain  French  wri- 
ter should  speak  of  the  idea  of  a  circle,  as  itself,  not 
round  5*  and  of  the  ideas  of  extended  things,  as  not  ex- 
tended. Your  apprehension,  that  ideas  could  not  be 
divisible,  unless  they  are  extended,!  heightened  my 
suspicion,  which  became  something  more  than  suspi- 
cion, when  I  found  you  speaking  of  the  soul's  need 
of  a  repository  for  her  ideas,$  especially  during  sleep  ; 
as  if  ideas  were  things  to  be  locked  up,  with  our  china, 
in  a  cupboard.  Dr  Priestley,  I  said  to  myself,  confounds 
ideas  with  the  impressions  of  external  objects,  on  the 
material  sensory  :  which  impressions  arc,  in  truth,  as 
much  external  to  the  mind,  as  the  objects  which  make 
them  :  what  pity,  that  he  hath  not  been  more  conversant 
with  the  Platonists  !  These  previous  indications,  of  your 
deficiency  in  this  branch  of  learning,  in  some  measure 
prepared  me  for  what  I  was  to  find,  in  your  History  of 
the  Philosophical  Doctrine  concerning  the  soul ;  inso- 
much, that  1  read  your  assertion,  that  "  Plato's  philoso- 
phy was  the  oriental  system,  with  very  little  variation,"|| 
without  indignation  ;  because  1  considered  it,  as  the  re- 
proach of  an  enemy,  whom  better  information  might 
make  a  friend.  I  was  indeed  surprised  at  your  want  of 
information  in  this  particular  instance;  because  Mo- 
sheim,  whose  authority  as  an  historian,  you  seem  to 
I/old  in  due  respect,  indisposed,  as  he  is  in  general,  to 
//>e  partial  to  the  Platonists,  hath  however  so  far  done 


*  Disquisitions,  p.  39.  f  IbJ(1-  P-  37» 

\  Ibid.  p.  79.  OT  1  Ibid  p.  274. 


LE 1  1  EltS  IN  REPLY  LET  Jf///. 

them  justice,  as  to  point  out  the  total  discordance,  in 
principle  at  least,  between  the  sober  philosophy  of  Plato, 
and  the  extravagancies  of  the  Gnosticks  ;  whose  princi- 
ples were  those  of  the  oriental  system.  After  this,  Sir, 
it  gives  me  no  surprise  at  all,  that  you  should  now  as- 
sert, "  that  it  was  never  imagined,  that  the  three  com- 
ponent members  of  the  Platonick  Trinity,  are  either 
equal  to  each  other,  or,  strictly  speaking,  one."*  They 
are,  Sir,  more  strictly  speaking,  one,  than  any  thing  in 
nature  of  which  unity  may  be  predicated.  No  one  of 
them  can  be  supposed  without  the  other  two.  The  se- 
cond and  third  being,  the  first  is  necessarily  supposed  ; 
and  the  first  (A.y*5ot)  being,  the  second  and  third,  (N*c 
&  VVXH)  must  come  forth.  Concerning  their  equality,  I 
will  not  say,  that  the  Platonists  have  spoken  with  the 
same  accuracy  which  the  Christian  fathers  use;  but 
they  include  the  three  principles  in  the  Divine  nature, 
in  the  TO  0i/ox ;  and  this  notion  implies  the  same  equali- 
ty, which  we  maintain ;  at  the  same  time  I  confess,  that 
the  circumstance  of  their  equality,  was  not  always  strict- 
ly adhered  to  by  the  younger  Platonists,  for  reasons 
which  I  have  explained.f 

2.  The  want  of  perspicuity,  is  a  fault  in  writing,  of 
which  indeed,  Sir,  you  are  little  guilty  ;  it  is  the  more 
extraordinary,  that  your  personification  of  the  Logos, 
should  not  be  distinctly  understood,  either  by  myself,  or 
by  my  learned  ally  :  for  my  own  part,  I  confess,  1  had 
not  the  least  apprehension,  that  you  used  the  word  jper- 
sonification  in  any  other  than  its  usual  sense ;  till,  in 


*  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  99. 
f  See  Charge  V.  sec.  5. 


1ST.  Xlll.  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 

your  reply  to  the  animadversions  of  my  learned  ally, 
you  distinguished  between  the  personification  of  the 
Logos,  which  you  impute  to  Justin,  and  the  earlier  doc- 
trines of  the  Gnosticks.*  By  personification,  I  had  no 
suspicion  that  you  meant  any  thing  more  than  a  gram- 
matical prosopopeia  ;  which  you  seemed  to  think  had 
been  used  both  by  Plato  and  St  John,  in  speaking  of 
the  divine  attribute  of  wisdom.  Certainly,  Sir,  you 
express  yourself  in  your  history,  as  if  you  thought,  that 
a  literal  acceptation  of  such  figured  language  was  the 
occasion,  that  a  mere  attribute  was  mistaken  for  a  real 
person,  first  in  the  academy,  and  afterwards  in  the 
church  :  and  that  this  error  led  to  another,  still  founded 
on  a  literal  interpretation  of  figurative  expressions  :  the 
expressions  in  which  St  John  describes,  as  you  conceive, 
the  extraordinary  degree  in  which  wisdom  and  power 
were  conferred  on  Christ,  being  understood  as  assertions, 
that  Christ  was  that  very  person,  which  was  supposed 
to  have  been  previously  described  by  the  evangelist,  as 
a  branch  of  the  Divinity.  1  thought,  Sir,  that  you  con- 
ceived that  a  mere  grammatical  prosopopeia  had  been, 
in  this  way,  the  first  step  towards  the  deification  of 
Christ :  upon  looking  again  into  the  second  section  of 
your  history,  I  see  no  great  reason  to  be  ashamed  of  my 
mistake — I  believe,  Sir,  that,  without  the  assistance  of 
the  comment,  which  your  Reply  to  the  Monthly  Re- 
viewer  furnishes,  no  reader  of  your  work  would  disco- 
ver  any  other  meaning  in  your  expressions.  It  seems, 
however,  that  the  word  personification,  is  a  new  term 
of  theology,  invented  by  you,  for  a  doctrine  which  is 


Reply  to  Monthly  Review  for  /une,  see.  5, 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  X1IL 

also  of  your  own  invention,  though  you  are  pleased  to 
give  the  credit  of  it  to  the  Platonick  fathers  :  the  doc- 
trine  of  the  conversion  of  an  attribute  into  a  person ; 
which  was  supposed,  you  say,  by  its  first  advocates,  to 
take  place  immediately  before  the  creation  of  the  world, 
but  being  afterwards  "  carried  farther  back,  namely,  to 
all  eternity,  it  led  to  the  present  doctrine  of  the  Trini- 
ty."* The  distinction  between  this  personification  of 
the  Logos,  and  the  earlier  doctrines  of  the  Gnosticks,  is, 
it  seems,  an  important  feature  in  the  great  outline  of 
your  work.  The  outline  of  your  work,  as  sketched  by 
yourself,  is  briefly  this. — The  exaltation  of  the  person 
of  Jesus  Christ  began  with  the  Gnosticks,  who  main- 
tained  the  preexistence  of  human  souls :  When  their 
errors  wrere  exploded,  the  personification  was  adopted — 
the  Arian  doctrine  was  subsequent  to  this  ;  and  it  was 
after  all  these,  that,  from  improvements  upon  the  doc- 
trine of  personification,  the  present  doctrine  of  the  Tri- 
nity was  brought  out.f  It  is  a  heavy  accusation  against 
niy  learned  ally  and  me,  that  we  have  not  sufficiently 
attended  to  these  distinctions  ;  and  the  omissions  shows, 
that  "  we  have  never  formed  a  right  conception  of  what 
we  undertook  to  exhibit.";): 

3.  Every  wrriter,  must  be  allowed  to  be  the  best  in- 
terpreter of  his  own  expressions  :  but  in  the  sense  in 
which  1  am  now  taught  to  understand  the  personifica- 
tion of  the  Logos,  I  cannot  perceive,  Sir,  with  what  pro- 
priety it  is  called  the  first  step  towards  the  deification 


*  Reply  to  Monthly  Review  for  June,  p.  34,  35, 

t  Ibid. 

t  Ibid.  p.  35 ;  and  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  36. 


LE7\  X11L  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 

of  Christ ;  since  the  doctrines  of  the  Gnosticks,  which 
you  maintain  to  be  more  ancient,  had,  in  your  judgment, 
the  same  tendency — I  am  sometimes  inclined  to  suspect, 
that  you  are  apt  yourself  to  fluctuate  between  your  own, 
and  the  vulgar  sense,  of  personification. 

4.  But  although  1  should  allow,  that  I  missed  the 
sense  of  a  particular  expression ;  I  am  not  sensible,  that 
I  misconceived,  or  misrepresented,  your  account  of  the 
ancient  opinions  :  you  certainly  make  the  Unitarian  doc- 
trine, the  general  opinion  of  the  first  Christians — In  the 
second  age  you  allow,  that  something  of  divinity  was 
ascribed  to  Christ ;  but  you  think  it  was  a  divinity  of  an 
inferior  kind,  including  neither  necessity,  nor  eternity, 
of  a  distinct  personal  existence  :  I  therefore  misrepre- 
sented not  the  great  outline  of  your  work,  when  I  said, 
that  the  first  race  of  Christians  were,  in  your  opinion, 
Unitarians  in  the  strictest  sense  of  the  word;  the  second, 
Arians:*  this  is  the  sum  of  your  account,  stated,  not  ia 
your  words,  but  in  ray  own.     You  complain,  however, 
that  I  "  have  misconceived  your  idea"f — you  inform 
me,  that  "  the  Platonizing  Christians  were  not  Arians  ; 
that  it  is  well  known  that  they  weve  not  Ariaus,  but  the 
orthodox  who  Platonized."J 

5.  Sir,  I  am  very  sensible,  that  the  Platonizers  of 
the  second  century,  were  the  orthodox  of  that  age — I 
have  not  denied  this  :  on  the  contrary,  I  have  endea- 
voured to  show,  that  their  Platonism  brings  no  imputa. 
tion  upon  their  orthodoxy.     The  advocates  of  the  Ca- 
tholick  faith,  in  modern  times,  have  been  too  apt  to  take 


*  Charg*  I.  see.  t .  f  Letters  to  Dr   Honley,  p.  SO. 

i  llii.J. 

29 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  XIII 

alarm  at  the  charge  of  Platonism  :  I  rejoice  and  glory 
in  the  opprohrium — 1  not  only  confess,  but  I  maintain, 
not  a  perfect  agreement,  but  such  a  similitude,  as  speaks 
a  common  origin,  and  affords  an  argument  in  confirma- 
tion of  the  Catholick  doctrine,  from  its  conformity  to  the 
most  ancient  and  universal  traditions.  Nor  is  this  the 
only  article,  in  which  heathen  antiquity,  however  you 
may  slight  the  argument,  by  the  vestiges,  which  are  to 
be  traced  even  in  idolatrous  rites,  of  the  patriarchal 
history  and  the  patriarchal  creed,  bears  its  testimony  to 
revelation.  But,  Sir,  I  well  know,  that  these  Platoni- 
zers  of  the  second  century,  were  far  more  ancient  than 
Arius  :  nor  did  I  mean  to  charge  you  with  the  absurdity 
of  maintaining  a  contrary  opinion  ;  I  thought  that  the 
notion  which  you  express,  of  what  was  orthodoxy  in  the 
second  century,  was  conveyed  in  a  single  word  ;  when 
it  was  said,  that  you  represent  the  Christians  of  the 
second  race  as  Arians ;  that  is,  as  Arians  in  belief;  be- 
cause the  divinity  which  you  suppose  to  have  been  ascri- 
bed by  them  to  Christ,  was  only  of  that  secondary  sort, 
which  Ariui  and  his  followers,  in  a  later  age,  allowed. 
But  to  convict  me  of  an  error  in  this  representation  of 
your  opinion,  you  now  set  up  a  distinction,  between  the 
opinions  which  you  would  ascribe  to  the  early  Plato- 
nists,  and  the  Arian  tenets  :  "  The  Logos  of  the  Plato- 
nizers,  you  say,  was  an  attribute  of  the  Father,  and  not 
any  tiling  that  was  created  out  of  nothing,  as  the  Arians 
held  Christ  to  have  been."*  However,  when  this  dis- 
tinction hath  served  the  purpose  of  convicting  me  of  one 
error,  it  is  cleared  away  again  to  convict  me  of  another : 


*  Letters  to  Br  Horsier,  p.  6$. 


LET.  X1U.  Ta  DR  PRIESTLEY. 

ibis  Logos  of  the  Platonists,  I  am  told,  "  was  originally 
nothing  more  than  a  property  of  the  Divine  mind,  which 
assumed  a  separate  personal  character  in  time."*  This 
is  the  same  notion  which  is  expressed  in  your  history, 
in  these  words.  "  All  the  early  fathers  speak  of  Christ, 
as  not  having  existed  always,  except  as  reason  exists  in 
man,  viz.  as  an  attribute  of  the  Deity."f  And  the  as- 
sumption of  a  personal  character,  seems  to  be  the  same 
thing,  which  in  your  history  you  call  "  the  conversion 
of  a  mere  attribute  into  a  thinking  substance :"  J  indeed, 
it  is  not  easy  to  conceive,  how  a  personal  character  may 
be  assumed,  otherwise  than  by  being  made  a  person — 
now,  what  the  difference  may  be,  between  a  making  out 
of  nothing,  and  the  conversion  of  a  mere  attribute  into 
a  substance  ;  or  how  a  person  made  out  of  an  attribute, 
may  differ  from  a  person  made  out  of  nothing — I  would 
rather,  Sir,  that  you  than  1,  should  take  the  trouble  to 
explain :  if  this  was  th«  difference  between  the  doctrines 
of  the  early  Platonizers  and  the  Arians,  and  this  is  the 
whole  difference  which  you  put  between  them,  they 
might  pass,  I  think,  for  the  same  :  and  your  account  of 
the  Platonick  orthodoxy,  was  not  misrepresented  by  me, 
when  1  said,  that  you  made  it  the  same  thing,  the  same 
in  form,  not  in  time,  with  Arianism. 

6.  But,  Sir,  I  maintain,  that  this  is  an  erroneous  and 
injurious  account  of  the  Platonick  Christians  :  this  con- 
version  of  an  attribute  into  a  substance,  was  never  taught 
by  them ;  nor  by  any,  except  the  Sabellians,  and  those 
earlier  visionaries  described  by  Justin  Martyr,  who 


*  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  72. 

|  Hist  cf  Gorrup.  p.  42.        *  Ibid.  p.  40. 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  X11L 

imagined  occasional  emissions  and  absorptions  of  the 
Divine  Logos  ;  "  which  opinion  (you  say)  was  not  very 
remote  from  the  Unitarian  doctrine."*  I  am  happy, 
Sir,  to  be  informed  by  you,  that  the  Unitarian  doctrine 
approaches  to  opinions  so  mysterious  :  I  thought,  that  to 
be  clear  of  mysteries,  had  been  its  particular  recommen- 
dation ;  I  now  find,  that  were  1  even  to  turn  Unitarian, 
I  should  have  mysteries  to  digest :  and  mysteries  much 
too  hard  for  my  digestion :  I  will,  therefore,  adhere  to 
my  creed,  in  which  I  know  no  mystery  to  be  compared 
with  this  notion,  of  a  thing  which  may  be  a  person,  and 
no  person,  by  fits  and  starts.  But  for  any  production  of 
the  Logos,  by  a  conversion,  either  permanent  or  occa- 
sional, of  an  attribute  into  a  thinking  substance  ;  I  still 
maintain,  that,  were  the  thing  conceivable,  the  Platonists 
were  likely  to  be  the  last  to  adopt  it :  because  a  created 
Logos,  to  use  my  former  expression,  had  been  no  less 
an  absurdity  in  the  academy,  than  it  is  an  impiety  in  the 
church :  and  the  notion,  that  this  doctrine  took  its  rise 
among  the  Platonists,  betrays  an  entire  ignorance  of  the 
genuine  principles  of  their  school."f 

7.  You  tell  me,  that  «  I  discover  in  these  animadver- 
sions, a  total  ignorance  of  what  you  have  asserted. — 
That  you  have  nowhere  said,  that  either  the  Platonists, 
or  the  Platonizing  Christians,  held,  that  the  Logos  was 
created,  or  that  it  had  ever  not  existed.":}:  What  then 
have  you  said  ?  You  said  in  your  History,  that  *«  All 
the  early  fathers  speak  of  Christ,  as  not  having  existed 


*  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  73. 
|  Charge  IV.  sec.  4. 

*  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  72. 


LET.  xin.  TO  DH  PRIESTLEY.  229 

always,  except  as an  attribute  of  the  Deity  :"*  that 

they  taught  *6  the  conversion  of  this  attribute  into  a  sub- 
stance"! — and  what  is  it  you  say  now  ?  You  say  now 
that  the  Platonizing  Christians  held,  that  "whereas 
the  Logos  was  originally  nothing  more  than  a  property 
of  the  Divine  mind,  it  assumed  a  separate  personal 
character  in  time."J  Be  pleased,  Sir,  to  explain  the 
difference  between  this  conversion  of  attribute  into  sub- 
stance, or  property  into  person,  and  a  creation  out  of 
nothing. 

8.  You  admit,  however,  that  the  eternity  of  the  Logos 
was  a  doctrine  of  Platonism :  but  you  attempt  to  as- 
sign a  reason,  why  the  converted  Platonists,  when  they 
entered  into  the  church,  must  have  parted  with  this 
opinion  :  "  the  Logos  (you  say)  of  the  Platonists,  had, 
in  their  opinion,  always  had  a  personal  existence,  be- 
cause Plato  supposed  creation  to  have  been  eternal ;  but 
this  was  not  the  opinion  of  the  Platonizing  Christians, 
who  held,  that  the  world  was  not  eternal ;  and  thefore, 
retaining  as  much  of  Platonism,  as  was  consistent  with 
that  doctrine,  they  held,  that  there  was  a  time  when  the 
Father  was  alone,  and  without  a  Son."||  Sir,  if  I 
thought  proper  to  deny  your  assertion,  that  Plato  sup. 
posed  creation  to  have  been  eternal ;  it  would  require 
much  more  skill  in  the  Platonick  philosophy,  than  is  to 
be  gotten  at  second  hand,  from  modern  authors,  who 
pretend  to  give  an  account  of  it,  to  confute  the  proof 
which  I  might  bring  to  the  contrary,  from  Plato's  own 
writings.  But  as  the  younger  Platonists  generally,  held 


*  Hist  of  Corrup.  p.  42.  f  Ibid.  p.  40. 

*  Letters  to  Dr  Hcrsley,  p.  72.         !j  Ibid. 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  X1IL 

the  eternity  of  creation  ;  and  Plato,  in  sonic  parts  of  his 
writings,  seems  to  favour  that  opinion,  notwithstanding 
what  he  says  to  the  contrary  in  the  Timseus;  I  shall 
take  no  advantage  of  the  uncertainty  of  your  assumption  : 
indeed,  it  would  be  sufficient  for  your  purpose,  were 
your  argument  sound  in  other  parts,  that  the  opinion  of 
the  world's  eternity  was  current  in  that  school,  in  which 
the  Christian  Platonists  were  trained,  and  was  probably 
entertained  by  them  all,  before  their  conversion :  still 
your  conclusion  will  not  stand,  unless  you  can  prove, 
that  the  Platonists,  whether  Christian  or  Pagan,  held 
the  Logos  to  be  a  part  of  the  world,  or  thought  the  eter- 
nity of  the  Logos,  a  consequence  only  of  the  world's 
eternity  ;  whereas,  neither  the  one  nor  the  other  of  these 
principles  would  have  been  allowed,  even  by  those  Pla- 
tonists who  deemed  the  world  eternal.  The  eternity  of 
the  world  seemed  to  them,  a  consequence  of  that  eternal 
activity,  which  they  ascribed  to  the  Deity ;  that  is,  to 
the  three  principles  of  Goodness  [  T'ayafor  ],  Intelli- 
gence [N»<],  and  Vitality  [Yt/;^]  :  an(^  chiefly  to  the 
two  last :  for  to  the  first  principle,  they  ascribed  indeed 
an  activity,  but  of  a  very  peculiar  kind  ;  such  as  might 
be  consistent  with  an  undisturbed  immutability.  He 
acts,  ptwv  w  eat/7*  v$iiy  by  a  simple  indivisible  unvaried 
energy ;  which  as  it  cannot  be  broken  into  a  multitude 
of  distinct  acts,  cannot  be  adapted  to  the  variety  of  ex- 
ternal things ;  on  which  therefore  the  First  Good  acts 
not,  either  to  create  or  to  preserve  them,  otherwise  fchan 
through  the  two  subordinate  principles.  The  eternal 
activity  therefore  of  the  Deity,  and  by  consequence,  the 
existence  of  Intellect  and  the  vital  principle,  in  which 
alone  the  Divine  nature  is  active  upon  external  things, 
was  necessary  in  this  system  to  the  eternity  of  the  world ; 


LET.  XIII.  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 

and  this  eternal  activity,  was  supposed  to  be  the  conse- 
quence of  that  goodness  of  the  Deity,  which  could  not 
suffer  that  to  be  delayed,  which,  because  he  hath  done 
it,  appears  to  be  fit  to  be  done :  the  world  therefore, 
however  the  fact  may  actually  be,  might  or  might  not 
have  been  eternal :  if  it  hath  been  eternal,  it  hath  been 
such,  not  by  its  own  nature,  but  by  the  choice  of  a  free 
agent,  who  might  have  willed  the  contrary.  But  intel- 
lect and  the  vital  principle,  have  been  eternal  by  neces- 
sity, as  branches  of  the  divinity — these  therefore  must 
have  been  eternal,  even  if  the  world  had  never  been, 
although  the  world  could  not  be  without  them;  and 
this,  upon  the  principles  of  those  philosophers,  who 
deemed  the  world  eternal.  The  converted  Platouists, 
therefore,  when  upon  the  authority  of  revelation,  they 
discarded  the  notion  of  the  world's  eternity,  would  not 
find  themselves  obliged  to  discard  with  this  the  eter- 
nity of  Intellect,  or  the  Logos  :  for  that  stands  upon 
another  ground,  and  is  indeed  eternity  of  quite  another 
kind. 

9.  But  whatever  they  might  be  at  liberty  to  do,  you 
are  confident  of  the  fact,  that  the  eternal  existence  of  the 
Logos,  as  a  person,  is  a  notion  which  was  discarded  by 
the  Christian  Platonists,  when  they  became  Christian. 
Your  proof  is  drawn  from  the  analogy   which  some 
of  them  imagined  between  the  Divine  Logos,  and  the 
reason  of  the  human  soul,  or,  between  the  Logos  and 
human  speech ;  and  from  the  doctrine  of  the  conver- 
sion of  an  attribute  into  a  substance,  which  you  per- 
suade yourself,  they  deliver  in  the  most  unequivocal 
language. 

10.  "  That  the  Logos  of  the  Father,  the  same  that 
constituted  the  second  person  in  the  Trinity,  exactly 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  XIII. 

corresponded  to  the  Logos,  or  reason,  or  word  of  man, 
was  the  idea  of  Athanasius  himself  :"*  in  proof  of  this 
assertion,  you  bring  a  passage  from  Athanasius,  in 
which,  to  prevent,  as  it  should  seem,  a  conclusion  which 
the  unwary  might  draw  from  the  agreement  of  the  name, 
instead  of  the  exact  correspondence  which  you  may 
imagine ;  he  shows  the  great  difference  between  the 
Divine  Logos  and  human  speech.  Tertullian,  in  a  pas- 
sage cited  in  your  history,  f  sets  up  something  of  an 
analogy  between  the  Divine  Logos  and  the  human 
reason  :  this  analogy,  if  I  mistake  not,  hath  been  pur- 
sued by  the  schoolmen,  with  their  peculiar  subtlety  ; 
and,  as  far  as  it  obtains,  is  well  explained  by  the  learn- 
ed Dr  Charles  Leslie,  in  his  dialogues,  entitled,  The 
Socinian  Controversy  discussed :  Tertullian,  to  prevent 
the  very  conclusion  which  you  draw  from  this  analogy, 
that  the  Logos  was  at  some  time  or  another  a  mere  at- 
tribute, remarks,  that  nothing  empty  and  unsubstantial 
can  proceed  from  God  ;  for  the  Divine  nature,  admitting 
neither  quality  nor  accident,  every  thing  belonging  to 
it  must  be  substance.  This  argument  is  ably  stated  in 
the  work  just  mentioned,  the  dialogues  of  the  learned 
Dr  Leslie. 

11.  For  the  conversion  of  an  attribute  into  a  sub- 
stance, I  abide  by  my  assertion,  that  it  is  the  offspring 
of  your  own  imagination,  and  can  only  have  arisen  from 
a  misapprehension  of  the  language  of  the  Platonick 
fathers  :  it  is  true,  that  they  speak  of  the  Son's  gener- 
ation as  taking  place  at  a  particular  time,  as  commen- 


*  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  69. 
t  Hist,  of  Corrup.  i».  38, 


LET.  XI1L  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY.  333 

cit»s  indeed  with  the  creation  :  But  by  this  genera- 
tion, they  understood  not  any  beginning  of  his  personal 
existence,  but  the  projection  of  his  energies;  the  dis- 
play of  his  powers,  in  the  production  of  external  sub- 
stances. 

i2.  You  reply,  "  that  any  mere  external  display  of 
powers  should  ever  be  termed  generation,  is  so  impro- 
bable, from  its  manifest  want  of  analogy  to  any  thing 
that  ever  was  called  generation  before  or  since,  that 
such  an  abuse  of  words  is  not  to  be  supposed  of  these 
writers,  or  of  any  person,  without  very  positive  proof; 
and,  in  this  case,"  you  say  to  me,"  you  advance  noth- 
ing but  a  mere  conjecture,  destitute  of  any  thing  that 
can  give  it  a  colour  of  probability."*     This  sentence, 
Sir,  only  finishes  the  proof,  if  it  was  before  defective,  of 
your  incompetency  in  the  subject.     It  shows,  that  you 
have  so  little  acquaintance  with  Platonism,  that  your 
mind   cannot  readily  apprehend  a  Platonick  notion, 
when  it  is  clearly  set  before  you  :  what  you  take  for 
my  mere  conjecture,  is  the  express  assertion  of  Athena- 
goras,  in  the  very  passage  which  you  have  quoted  :  and 
Athenagoras,  I  should  think,  might  be  a  sufficient  evi- 
dence of  his  own  meaning — he  says, — that  the  Son  was 
called  the  Son,  as  being  the  first  offspring  of  the  Father 
— not  because  he  was  ever  made,  but  because  he  went 
forth  to  act  upon  material  substances. |    He  explains 
the  generation  of  the  Son,  by  declaring  first  what  it 
signifies  not ;  then,  what  it  signifies.     A  making,  it  sig- 
nifies not :  a  going  forth,  according  to  Athenagoras;  it 


*  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  70. 
t  Charge  IV.  sec.  5. 

30 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  XIII 

signifies.    That  the  generation  of  the  Son  of  God  is 
something  figuratively  called  a  generation,  will  hardly 
be  denied — Athenagoras  declares  what  he  understood 
by  the  figure ;  and  the  interpretation  which  he  puts  upon 
it,  seems  to  have  been  general  among  the  writers  who 
came  from  the  same  school — it  rests  not  however  upon 
any  conjecture,  but  upon  his  authority :  the  fault,  Sir, 
is  not  in  me,  if  you  cannot  perceive  his  meaning  when 
it  is  rendered  in  our  own  language.  You  object  a  want 
of  analogy,  between  the  figure,  and  the  thing  which  it 
is  supposed  to  represent :  this,  I  think,  with  an  Unita- 
rian, should  be  but  a  slight  objection ;  since  the  whole 
language  of  the  New  Testament,  in  their  view  of  it,  is 
made  up  of  figures,  in  which  analogy  is  wanting :  but 
the  question  is  not,  what  may  be  the  natural  sense  of 
the  word  generation,  when  it  is  applied  to  the  Son  of 
God,  or  what  may  be  its  true  sense  when  it  is  so  applied 
in  Scripture ;  but  in  what  sense  it  was  accepted  by  the 
Platonizing  Christians :  I  affirm,  upon  the  authority  of 
Athenagoras,  that  it  was  understood  by  them,   when 
they  speak  of  it  as  taking  place  at  a  certain  time,  not 
of  a  beginning  of  the  Son's  existence,  but  of  a  display 
of  his  powers  :  to  confute  this  assertion,  instead  of  criti- 
cal reasoning  upon  the  propriety  of  the  language,  you 
must  produce  some  better  authority  upon  your  own 
side,  than  that  of  Athenagoras,  whose  testimony  is  ex- 
press and  full,  on  mine. 

13.  But,  for  the  sense  which  these  Platonists  put 
upon  the  word  generation,  I  am  not  solicitous  to  defend 
it — I  have  spoken  of  it  in  my  Charge  as  a  conceit ;  and 
I  have  spoken  of  the  attempt,  to  put  a  determinate  sense 
upon  a  figurative  expression,  of  which  no  particular 
exposition  can  be  drawn  from  holy  writ,  as  highly 


JLET.  XIIL  TO  DR.  PRIESTLEY. 

presumptuous;*  still,  Sir,  the  Platonists  are  not  with- 
out a  defence,  against  what  you  have  found  to  object 
to  the  propriety  of  the  expression,  in  the  sense  in 
which    they  understand  it — You  say  to  me,  "  Since 
according  to  your   hypothesis,  the  Logos  was  always 
an  intelligent  person,  he  must  have  exerted  his  intel- 
lectual faculties,  in  some  way  or  other  from  all  eter- 
nity, as  much  as  the  Father  himself  :"f     It  is  true,  Sir. 
But  it  was  not  an  exertion  of  his  faculties  in  some  ivay 
or  other,  but  the  first  exertion  of  them  on  external  things, 
that  the  Platonick  fathers  understood  by  generation. 
This  was  the  exertion  in  which  the  Son  came  forth. 
Before  this,  he  energized  only  within  himself :    he  lay, 
as  it  were,  unissued  in  the  bosom  of  the  Father.     You 
go  on "  was  the  exertion  of  the  faculties  of  the  Fa- 
ther in  the  creation  of  the  world,  ever  called  a  genera- 
tion of  the  Father? and  yet,  according  to  you,  this 

language  must  have  been  equally  proper  with  respect 

to  the  Father/'J Not  according  to  me,  Sir.     I  hold 

with  the  Platonists,  that  the  Father's  faculties  are  not 
exerted  on  external  things,  otherwise  than  through  the 
Son  and  Holy  Ghost :  these  two  persons  being,  as  it 
were,  the  two  faculties,  in  which  alone  the  Divine  nature 
is  active  on  created  things  :  although  I  approve  not  ths 
attempt  to  determine  the  meaning  of  a  figure,  which  the 
holy  Scriptures  leave  undetermined  ;  yet  I  cannot  allow, 
that  the  language,  in  that  interpretation  of  it  which  I 
ascribe  to  the  Platonists,  is  as  improper  of  the  Son  as  it 
would  be  of  the  Father  :  I  perceive  indeed  no  impvo- 


*  Charge  IV.  sec.  6. 

|  Letters  to  Or  Hcrsley,  p.  71.  *  Ibid. 


236  LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  XIII. 

priety  in  it,  as  applied  to  the  Son  ;  I  only  complain  of 
the  want  of  authority  from  holy  writ. 

14.  Still  I  maintain,  that  the  thing  in  question  is, 
not  the  propriety  or  impropriety  of  an  expression ;  hut 
the  fact,  how  an  expression  was  used  and  understood  by 
certain  writers :  it  were  endless  to  accumulate  authori- 
ties ;  but  if  the  single  testimony  of  Athenagoras  is  not 
sufficient,  I  will  produce  two  more ;  to  one  of  which,  at 
least,  1  expect  that  you  will  pay  some  regard,  because 
it  is  given  by  hereticks.  The  first,  is  that  of  Constan- 
tine  the  Great — the  emperor  may  be  numbered  among 
the  Platouizing  Christians  ;  because,  as  you  have  your- 
self  observed,  he  alleges  the  authority  of  Plato,  in  sup- 
port of  the  Catholick  doctrine  :  now  Constantino  the 
Great,  in  his  epistle  to  the  Nicomedians,  written  after 

the  Nicene  council,  uses  these  expressions "  he  was 

begotten,  or  rather  he  himself  came  forth  (being  even 
ever  in  the  Father)  for  the  setting  in  order  of  the  things 
which  were  made  by  him.'7*  Here  the  emperor  ex- 
pounds generation,  by  coming  forth  :  he  thinks,  ts  that 
he  came  forth,"  the  more  significant  expression  :  and  he 
asserts  the  eternal  coexistence  of  the  Son  and  Father. 
The  other  testimony,  on  which  I  should  more  rely  for 
your  conviction,  if  I  could  hope  that  any  testimony 
might  produce  it,  is  that  of  Arius  the  hseresiarch,  and 
the  priests  and  deacons  of  his  faction.  In  their  common 
letter  to  Alexander,  bishop  of  Alexandria,  (the  seat  you 
know  of  the  Platonick  school,)  stating  what  they  be- 
lieved, and  what  they  disbelieved ;  among  the  arti- 


?ra.vl&  w  TO»   natt     oy,   vr?  TW 


LET.  XIII. 


TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 


837 


cles  which  they  disbelieved  is  this  :  "  that  the  Son, 
previously  existing,  was  afterwards  begotten  :"*  And  it 
is  remarkable,  that  this  stands  last  in  a  list  of  articles 
of  disbelief.  In  the  preceding  articles,  their  disbelief  is 
justified,  by  a  reference  of  the  rejected  propositions  to 
certain  hereticks,  as  the  first  authors  of  them  :  of  one  to 
Valentinus,  of  another  to  Manes,  and  another  to  Sabel- 
lius :  but  this  article,  is  not  referred  to  any  heretick ; 
which  argues  that  they  were  conscious,  that  this  was 
the  opinion  of  the  church  :  it  is  true,  they  immediately 
subjoin,  that  "  Alexander  himself,  had  often  publickly 
declared  against  those  who  introduced  such  things  ;"  as 
if  this  had  been  one  of  the  things,  which  Alexander  con- 
demned :  but  the  falsehood  of  this  insinuation  appears, 
from  another  epistle  of  Arius  to  Eusebius  of  Nicomedia, 
to  whom  as  a  friend,  the  heretick  may  be  supposed  to 
write  without  art  or  disguise.  In  this  epistle  he  men- 
tions the  proposition,  ''that  the  Son  is  coexistent  with 
God,  without  generation,"  f  as  one  of  the  articles  of 
Alexander's  publick  doctrine,  to  which  he  could  not 
give  assent.  You  will  find  both  these  epistles,  in  Epi- 
phanius's  account  of  the  Arians. 

15.  From  these  testimonies  it  is  indisputable,  that 
the  early  Platonists,  by  the  generation  of  the  Son,  when 
they  speak  of  ir  •  iking  place  at  a  particular  time, 
understand  not  beginning  of  his  existence  :  and  it 
appears  that  it  ,<ts  the  language  of  the  orthodox,  at  the 
time  of  the  Nicene  council,  that  the  existence  of  the 
Son,  was  prior  to  his  generation,  and  independent  of  it ; 


TOV  oi7* 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET. 

coeval  indeed  with  the  eternal  Father's.  Later  writers 
distinguish  three  generations  :  the  incarnation  ;  the  going 
forth  to  the  business  of  creation  ;  and  an  eternal  genera- 
tion ;  which  last,  is  only  a  name  for  the  unknown  man- 
ner, in  which  the  Son's  existence  is  connected  with  the 
Father's,  Tertullian,  in  the  passage  which  you  have 
quoted  in  your  History,*  which  you  call  upon  me  so 
particularly  to  consider,*!*  only  speaks  the  language  of 
his  times,  and  never  dreamed  that  he  should  be  under- 
stood to  assert  a  beginning  of  the  Son's  existence,  when 
he  said,  "  that  the  nativity  of  the  word  was  perfected, 
when  God  said,  Let  there  be  Light." 

16.  You  now,  Sir,  produce  another  passage  of  Ter. 
tullian,  to  prove  "  how  ready  the  Platonizing  Chris- 
tians were,  to  revert  to  the  idea  of  an  attribute  of  God, 
in  their  use  of  the  word  Logos  :"J  but  the  passage,  in- 
stead of  proving  this  readiness  of  the  Platonizing  Chris- 
tians, proves  the  readiness  of  the  Pagan  philosophers,  to 
apply  this  same  name  to  a  person  \  even  to  the  Maker  of 
the  Universe. 

17-  You  call  upon  me  to  consider  also  a  passage  cited 
in  your  History,  from  Lactantius,  whose  orthodoxy,  you 
tell  me,  I  cannot  question.  ||  Sir,  you  are  not  more  in- 
accurate in  your  citations  from  the  ancients,  than  unfor- 
tunate in  your  divinations  about  the  principles  of  your 
contemporaries,  and  the  concessions  which  they  will  be 
willing  to  make  to  you  : — the  orthodoxy  of  Lactantius  I 
shall  question,  I  shall  deny :  he  had  not  perhaps  the 
dispositions  of  an  heretick — he  did  not  set  himself  to 


*  Vol.  I.  p.  38—40.  f  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  6f. 

*  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  76.  J  Ibid. 


LET.  XIII. 


TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 


239 


oppose,  what  he  knew  to  be  the  approved  doctrine  of  the 
church — but  his  talent  was  eloquence,  which  he  posses- 
sed in  a  high  degree,  and  his  learning  was  in  mytholo- 
gical antiquity:  in  philosophy,  his  information  was 
small ;  in  divinity,  he  was  a  child :  the  common  places 
of  morality  and  natural  religion,  he  touches  with  ele- 
gance ;  and  he  inveighs  against  the  Pagan  superstition, 
in  a  masterly  strain :  but  in  his  attempt  to  philosophize, 
or  to  expound  articles  of  faith,  he  is  contemptible  : — in 
the  seventh  chapter  of  his  first  book,  he  ascribes  a  be- 
ginning to  the  existence  of  the  eternal  Father — no  won- 
der then,  that  he  should  ascribe  a  beginning  to  the  Son's 
existence : — you  are  welcome,  Sir,  to  any  advantage 
you  may  be  able  to  derive,  from  the  authority  of  such  a 
writer. 

18.  I  persuade  myself  I  have  now  shown,  that  your 
objection  to  the  Catholick  doctrine,  founded  on  its  sup- 
posed Platonisra,  and  your  argument  for  what  I  shall 
call  the  Arianism  of  the  Platonizers  from  Athenagoras, 
are  well  entitled  to  the  places  which  they  hold  among 
my  specimens  of  insufficient  proof,  of  which  the  one  is 
the  sixth,  and  the  other  the  eighth  in  order. 

I  am,  &c. 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  XIV. 


LETTER  FOURTEENTH. 

In  Reply  to  Dr  Priestley9 s  eighth. — The  archdeacon's 
supposition,  that  the  first  Ebionites  worshipped  Christ, 
defended. — His  supposition,  that  TJieodotus  was  the 
first  person  who  taught  the  Unitarian  doctrine  at 
Home,  defended. 

DEAR  SIR. 

OF  all  ray  nine  specimens  of  insufficient  proof,  se- 
lected from  the  first  book  of  your  History,  the  fifth  is 
the  only  one,  about  which  any  doubt  is  likely  to  remain 
(except  with  yourself)  that  it  was  properly  alleged  :  for 
the  seventh  and  the  ninth,  you  give  up ;  and  the  other 
six  have  been  considered. 

g.  My  fifth  specimen,  was  your  misrepresentation  of 
Eusebius,  a  writer  of  acknowledged  veracity  and  can- 
dour, whom  you  very  rashly  charge  with  inconsistency, 
and  even  with  unfairness ;  because,  in  his  account  of 
Theodotus  the  hsBresiarch,  who  appeared  at  Rome  about 
the  year  190,  he  cites  another  writer,  who  says,  that 
this  Theodotus  was  the  first  who  taught  the  mere  hu- 
manity of  Christ ;  whereas  it  appears  from  his  own 
history,  that  the  Ebionites,  who  held  the  mere  human- 
ity of  Christ,  were  far  more  ancient  than  Theodotus. 
Admitting  the  antiquity  of  the  Ebionites,  I  maintain, 
that  Eusebius  is  so  easily  reconciled  with  the  author 


LET.  XIV.  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 

whom  he  cites,  that  the  difference  between  them,  is  no 
just  ground  to  tax  the  veracity  of  either.  It  is  very  cer- 
tain, that  Theodotus  maintained  the  mere  humanity  of 
Christ  in  the  grossest  sense  :  in  that  gross  and  shocking 
sense,  in  which  it  is  at  this  day  taught  by  yourself  and 
Mr  Lindsey  :  It  is  not  certain  that  the  Ebionites,  before 
Theodotus,  had  gone  further  than  to  deny  our  Lord's 
original  divinity  :  they  probably,  like  Socinus,  admitted 
some  unintelligible  exaltation  of  his  nature  after  hii 
resurrection,  which  rendered  him  the  object  of  worship  j 
if  this  was  the  case,  Theodotus  might  justly  claim  the 
honour  of  being  the  first  assertor  of  our  Lord's  humani- 
ty, being  indeed  the  first  who  made  humanity  the  whole 
of  his  condition  :  by  this  very  natural  supposition,  that 
the  Ebionites  were  Unitarians  of  a  milder  sort  than 
Theodotus,  Eusebius  might  have  been  reconciled  with 
himself,  had  it  been  his  own  assertion,  that  Theodo- 
tus was  the  first,  who  taught  the  mere  humanity  of 
Christ.* 

3.  But  this  is  not  the  assertion  of  Eusebius,  but  of 
another  writer  cited  by  Eusebius  :  now,  since  Theodo- 
tas  broached  his  heresy  at  Rome,  it  is  very  probable, 
that  the  writer  cited  by  Eusebius  was  a  Roman,  and 
that  ho  treated  of  the  state  of  religion  in  the  western 
church,  and  especially  at  Rome,  where  Theodotus  was 
probably  the  first,   who,  in  any  sense,  taught  the  mere 
humanity  of  Christ,  f 

4.  You  tell  me,  in  your  eighth  letter,  that  the  differ- 
ence which  I  put  between  Theodotus  and  Ebion,  is  ad^ 


*  Soe  Charge  I.  sec.  .10.  .  Charge,  r, 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  XIV. 

vanced  upon  my  own  authority  :*  truly,  Sir,  I  think 
that  a  supposition,  which  reconciles  a  writer  of  estab- 
lished credit  with  himself,  or,  which  is  nearly  the  same 
thing,  with  another  writer  whom  he  cites  with  appro- 
bation, should  need  no  great  authority  to  support  it ; 
unless  it  be  contrary  to  known  fact,  in  which  case  in- 
deed no  authority  might  support  it,  or  in  itself  impro- 
bable :  Now,  Sir,  can  you  prove,  that  Christ  was  not 
worshipped  by  the  original  Ebionites  ?  Can  you  prove 
this,  I  would  ask,  by  explicit  evidence  ?  For  as  for  that 
kind  of  proof,  in  which  you  so  much  delight,  which  is 
drawn  by  abstract  reasoning  from  general  and  precari- 
ous maxims ;  it  is  of  no  more  significance  in  history, 
than  testimony  would  be  in  mathematicks  ;  to  think  to 
demonstrate  a  fact  by  syllogism,  is  not  less  absurd,  than 
to  go  about  to  establish  a  geometrical  theorem  by  an 
affidavit :  excuse  me,  if  I  insist  upon  the  difference,  in 
the  nature  of  things,  between  historick  certainty  and 
scientifick  truth:  I  apprehend,  an  inattention  to  this 
distinction  hath  misled  many,  and  hath  been  the  cause 
of  much  fruitless  labour  in  many  subjects.  Scientifick 
truth  can  only  be  established  by  abstract  reasoning — 
testimony  can,  in  science,  produce  nothing  more  than 
probability — in  history,  it  is  quite  the  reverse  ;  abstract 
reasoning  can  never  go  beyond  a  probability :  proof 
must  arise  from  evidence  :  and  the  reason  of  this  is  plain 
— the  principles  of  scientifick  truth  are  all  within  the 
mind  itself :  the  truths  of  history,  are  the  occurrences  of 
the  external  world :  neglecting  this  necessary  distinc- 
tion, the  great  Berkley  questioned  the  existence  of  the 


*  Letters  to  l)r  Horsley,  p.  103. 


LET.  XIV.  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 

material  world,  because  he  found  it  incapable  of  demon- 
stration ;  and  I  have  known  many  seek  a  confirmation 
of  geometrical  theorems  from  experiment.  Now  to  re- 
turn to  my  subject :  have  you  evidence,  for  that  is  the 
only  proof  to  which,  in  this  case,  the  judicious  will 
attend ;  have  you  evidence,  that  Christ  was  not  wor- 
shipped by  the  Ebionites  ?  If  you  have  none,  my  sup- 
position  is  not  contrary  to  known  fact :  is  it  in  itself 
improbable,  since  all  innovations  have  a  progress,  and 
the  divinity  of  Christ  was  the  belief,  and  the  worship  of 
Christ  the  practice,  of  the  first  ages,  that  presumptuous 
men  would  begin  to  question  the  ground,  on  which  his 
right  to  worship  might  be  thought  to  stand,  before  they 
abandoned  the  worship  to  which  they  had  been  long 
habituated  ?  Hath  not  this  been  the  progress  of  the  cor- 
ruption (you  will  call  it  reformation,  but  I  must  speak 
my  own  language)  in  later  times  ?  Socinus,  although  he 
denied  the  original  divinity  of  our  Lord,  was  neverthe- 
less a  worshipper  of  Christ,  and  a  strenuous  assertor  of 
his  right  to  worship  :  it  was  left  to  others  to  build  upon 
the  foundation  which  Socinus  laid ;  and  to  bring  the 
Unitarian  doctrine  to  the  goodly  form,  in  which  the  pre- 
sent age  beholds  it. 

5.  But,  Sir,  my  supposition  is  not  only  free  from  im- 
probability ;  it  is  highly  probable :  Ebion,  in  his  notions 
of  the  Redeemer,  as  1  have  already  had  occasion  to 
observe,  seems  to  have  been  a  mere  Cerinthian —  Epi- 
phanius  and  Iren^us  say,  that  he  held  the  Cerinthian 
doctrine  of  a  union  of  Jesus  with  a  superangelick  being. 
The  Cerinthian  doctrine  was, — that  this  union  com- 
menced at  our  Lord's  baptism  ;  was  interrupted  during 
the  crucifixion  and  at  the  time  of  our  Lord's  interment, 
but  restored  again  after  his  resurrection;  and  beiug 


LETTERS  IN  REf  IA  LET.  XII" 

restored,  it  rendered  the  man  Jesus  an  object  of  divine 
honours.  As  Epiplianius  says  in  general  of  Ebion, 
that  he  held  the  Cerinthian  doctrine  concerning  Christ, 
without  specifying  parts  that  he  received,  and  parts  that 
he  rejected ;  the  probability  is,  that  he  received  the 
whole  ;  and  of  consequence,  that  he  worshipped  Christ 
as  a  deified  man,  notwithstanding  that  he  denied  his 
original  divinity.  This  supposition  of  mine  hath,  you 
see,  a  probability  of  its  own ;  which  is  quite  distinct 
from  that  which  accrues  to  it,  from  its  use  in  reconciling 
Eusebius  with  the  historian  that  he  quotes  ;  and  is 
founded  on  the  acknowledged  agreement  of  Ebion  with 
Cerinthus. 

6.  For  my  other  supposition,  that  Theodotus  might  be 
the  first  person  who  taught  the  Unitarian  doctrine  at 
Rome,  you  think  it  highly  improbable,  "  because  Ter- 
tullian  says,  that  in  his  time,  the  Unitarians  were  the 
greater  part  of  believers  :"*  at  Home  therefore,  "  where 
there  was  a  conflux  of  all  Religions  and  of  all  sects," 
the  probability  is  little,  that  there  should  be  no  Unitari- 
ans. Sir,  I  will  grant — I  am  liberal,  I  am  sure,  in  my 
concessions — I  will  grant,  that  Rome  swarmed  with  Uni- 
tarians in  the  time  of  Tertullian :  not  for  the  reason  which 
you  assign ;  that  Tertullian  says,  the  Unitarians  were 
the  majority  of  believers ;  for  this  Tertullian  hath  not 
said ;  with  whatever  confidence  you  may  ascribe  to  him, 
the  dreams  of  Zuick^r  and  his  credulous  disciples ;  I 
must  take  the  liberty  to  say,  Sir,  that  a  man  ought  to  be 
accomplished  in  ancient  learning,  who  thinks  he  may 


*  Letters  to  Dr   Horatey,  p.  Ktf.— See  also  p.  121 ;  and  Sccoad  Letter;*. 


LET.  XIV.  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 

escape,  with  impunity,  and  without  detection,  in  the  at- 
tempt,  to  brow-beat  the  world  with  a  peremptory  and 
reiterated  allegation,  of  testimonies  that  exist  not :  but, 
Sir,  although  I  deny  that  Tertullian  says,  that  the  Uni- 
tarians were  in  his  time  the  majority  of  believers ;  yet 
I  will  grant,  that  they  were  numerous  at  Rome  in  the 
time  of  Tertullian  ;  I  profess  1  know  not  how  numerous, 
or  how  few  they  were  ;  but  to  show  the  strength  of  my 
cause,  since  you  are  pleased  to  have  it  so,  let  them  bo 
numerous ;  how  will  their  numbers  affect  my  supposi- 
tion, that  Theodotus  was  the  iirst  person  who,  at  Rome, 
taught  the  Unitarian  doctrine  ?  Might  not  this  be,  al- 
though the  Unitarians  swarmed  at  Rome  in  the  time  of 
Tertullian  ?  Believe  me,  Sir,  it  well  might  be ;  for  the 
times  of  Tertullian,  were  the  very  times  of  Theodotus  : 
about  the  year  of  our  Lord  185,  Tertullian  embraced  / 
Christianity — about  the  year  of  our  Lord  190,  came 
Theodotus  the  apostate,  the  tanner  of  Byzantium, 
preaching  at  Rome  the  doctrine  of  Antichrist. 

7.  My  learned  ally  has  a  third  conjecture,  for  the 
reconciling  of  Eusebius  and  his  author.  It  is  by  no 
means  necessary  to  our  argument,  that  either  of  my  sup- 
positions, or  that  his,  or  that  any  particular  conjecture 
•which  may  be  made  upon  the  subject,  should  be  brought 
to  a  certainty ;  you  tax  Eusebius  with  want  of  candour 
and  consistency — the  charge  rests  upon  an  assumption, 
that  what  Eusebius  relates  of  the  antiquity  of  the  Ebion- 
ites,  and  what  his  author  affirms  of  the  first  assertion  of 
our  Lord's  mere  humanity,  by  Theodotus,  cannot  be  in- 
terpreted but  in  contradictory  senses  :  if  we  have  shown, 
by  a  variety  of  probable  conjectures,  that  the  two  asser- 
tions admit  consistent  interpretations,  that  each  may  be 
true  in  the  sense  ia  which  each  writer  understood  him. 


LETTERS  IX  REPLY  LET.  XIV. 

self,  without  contradiction  of  the  other,  the  whole  evi- 
dence of  your  accusation  is  demolished,  and  the  charge, 
of  temerity  and  presumption,  lies  heavy  on  yourself,  for 
an  attack  which  you  cannot  support  with  proof,  upon 
the  character  of  a  grave  and  respectable  historian. 

I  am,  &c. 


LET,  XV.  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 


LETTER   FIFTEENTH. 

In  Reply  to  Dr  Priestley's  seventh. — The  metaphysical 
difficulties  stated  by  Dr  Priestley,  neither  new  nor 
unanswerable. — Difficulties  short  of  a  contradiction, 
no  objection  to  a  revealed  doctrine. — Difficulties  in 
the  JLrian  and  Socinian  doctrine. — The  Father  not 
the  sole  object  of  worship. — Our  Lord,  in  what  sense 
an  image  of  the  invisible  God,  and  the  first-born  of 
every  creature. — Not  the  design  of  the  evangelists,  to 
deliver  a  system  of  fundamental  principles. — The 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  rests  on  the  general  tenor  of  the 
sacred  writings. — The  inference,  that  Christ  is  not 
God,  because  the  apostles  often  speak  of  him  as  man, 
invalid. — The  inference,  from  the  manner  in  which 
he  sometimes  speaks  of  himself,  invalid. — The  Atha- 
nasians  of  the  last  age,  no  Tritheists. 

DEAR  SIR, 

AFTER  the  declaration  which  I  have  made,  that  I 
will  not  enter  into  a  regular  controversy  with  you,  upon 
the  subject  of  the  Trinity  ;  you  will  not  wonder,  if  you 
receive  only  a  general  reply  to  some  parts  of  your  sev- 
enth letter.  A  particular  answer  to  the  several  objec- 
tions which  it  contains,  would  lead  me  into  metaphysical 
disquisitions,  which  I  wish  to  decline,  because,  in  that 
subject  I  foresee,  that  we  should  want  common  principles 
and  a  common  language.  The  questions,  which  you 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  %V< 

propose  in  the  second  and  the  fourth  sections  of  this  let- 
ter, are  not  new,  and  have  been  answered :  but  if  they 
were  unanswerable,  what  would  be  the  inference  ?  The 
inference  would  ohly  be,  that  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity 
hath  its  difficulties  ;  and  is  it  possible,  that  any  doctrine 
concerning  the  nature  of  the  Deity,  should  be  without 
its  difficulties?  When  the  infinite  distance  is  considered 
between  man  and  his  Maker,  it  seems  reasonable  to 
presume,  that  there  must  be  mysteries,  far  above  the  reach 
of  the  human  understanding,  both  in  the  nature  of  God, 
and  in  the  plan  of  his  government ;  that  the  fullest  dis- 
covery that  could  be  made,  of  God  and  of  his  ways,  to 
the  human  intellect,  must  be  imperfect ;  because,  how- 
ever perfect  in  itself,  it  could  be  but  imperfectly  appre- 
hended. No  difficulties,  therefore,  short  of  a  contradic- 
tion, can  be  allowed  to  constitute  an  objection,  to  a  doc- 
trine claiming  divine  original ;  on  the  contrary,  it  should 
rather  seem,  that  to  involve  difficulties,  must  be  one 
characteristick  of  a  divine  revelation ;  and  its  greatest 
difficulties,  may  reasonably  be  expected  to  lie  in  those 
parts,  which  immediately  respect  the  nature  of  God,  and 
the  manner  of  his  existence  :  if  you  would  suppose  the 
contrary,  if  you  would  insist,  that  a  divine  revelation, 
being  intended  for  the  general  information  of  mankind, 
must  be  perspicuous  and  free  from  difficulty ;  1  would 
ask,  is  Christianity  clear  of  difficulties  in  any  of  the 
Unitarian  schemes  ?  hath  the  Arian  hypothesis  no  diffi- 
culty, when  it  ascribes  both  the  first  formation,  and  the 
perpetual  government  of  the  universe,  not  to  the  Deity, 
but  to  an  inferior  being  ?  can  any  power  or  wisdom, 
less  than  the  Supreme,  be  a  sufficient  ground  for  the 
trust  we  are  required  to  place  in  Providence  ?  Make 
the  wisdom  and  the  power  of  our  ruler  what  you  please; 


TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 

y  upon  the  Ariau  principle,  it  is  the  wisdom  and  the 
power  of  a  creature :  where  then  will  be  the  certainty, 
that  the  evil  which  we  find  in  the  world,  hath  not  crept 
in  through  some  imperfection  in  the  original  contrivance, 
or  in  the  present  management ;  since  every  intellect, 
below  the  first,  may  be  liable  to  error,  and  any  power, 
short  of  the  supreme,  may  be  inadequate  to  purposes  of 
a  certain  magnitude  ?  But  if  evil  may  have  thus  crept 
in,  what  assurance  can  we  have,  that  it  will  ever  be 
extirpated  ?  In  the  Socinian  scheme,  is  it  no  difficulty, 
that  the  capacity  of  a  mere  man  should  contain  that  wis- 
dom, by  which  God  made  the  universe  ?  AVhatever  is 
meant  by  the  Word  in  St  John's  gospel,  it  is  the  same 
Word  of  which  the  evangelist  says,  that  all  things  were 
made  by  it,  and  that  it  was  itself  made  flesh  :  if  this 
Word  be  the  Divine  attribute,  Wisdom ;  then  that  at- 
tribute, in  the  degree  which  was  equal  to  the  formation 
of  the  universe,  in  this  view  of  the  Scripture  doctrine, 
was  conveyed  entire  into  the  mind  of  a  mere  man,  the 
son  of  a  Jewish  carpenter — a  much  greater  difficulty,  in 
ray  apprehension,  than  any  that  is  to  be  found  in  the 
Catholick  faith.* 


*  Ir»  reply  to  this,  DP  Priestley  says  to  me,  in  the  thirteenth  of  his  Second 
Letters,  s*-c.  3.  "Pray,  Sir,  what  Socinian  ever  maintained,  that  the  Divine 
attribute,  Wisdom,  in  the  degree  which  was  equal  to  the  formation  of  the  uni- 
verse, was  conveyed  entire  into  the  mind  of  Jesus  Christ  ?"  I  say,  that  St  John 
maintains  it,  if  St  John  was,  what  Dr  Priestley  believes  him  to  have  been,  a 
Socinian.— -It  is  maintained  iu  the  beginning  of  St  John's  gospel,  if  the  evangel- 
ist's words  be  expounded  in  the  true  sease  by  the  Unitarians— the  Word,  which 
was  with  God  from  the  beginning,  according  to  St  John,  was  made  flesh :  if  the 
Word,  which  was  made  flesh,  was  not  the  same  Word  which  was  in  the  begin- 
ning with  God,  by  which  all  things  were  made,  there  is  no  meaning  in  the  evao» 
felist's  words,  literal  or  figurative.  The  Word's  being  made  flesh,  according  to 
the  Socinians,  was  only  a  communication  of  the  Word  to  the  mind  of  Christ : 
t»h»t  was  communUated  to  the  mind  of  Christ  ?  that  Word  whi«h  was  from  the 

32 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  XV 

Q.  In  the  third  section  of  your  seventh  letter,  you 
build  an  argument  for  the  sole  deity  of  the  Father,  upon 
an  assumption  that  he  is  the  sole  object  of  worsbip.  To 
this  argument  I  have  replied.*  I  deny  tbe  assumption — 
I  cite  the  example  of  St  Stephen,  whose  last  act  of  wor- 
ship was  addressed  to  Christ :  you  allege,  on  the  other 
side,  the  example  of  our  Saviour,  who  himself  prayed 
to  the  Father,  the  authority  of  Origen  ;  and,  I  know  not 
what,  early  and  universal  practice  :  I  reply,  that  our 
Saviour,  as  a  man,  owed  worship  to  the  Father:  I 
maintain,  that  neither  the  authority  of  Origen,  nor  any 
universal  practice  of  a  later  age,  can  outweigh  the  ex- 
ample  of  St  Stephen,  were  it  single  ;  much  less,  sup- 
ported as  it  is  by  other  examples  of  equal  weight :  the 
worship  addressed  to  Christ,  by  St  Stephen  and  the 
apostles,  either  proves  the  divinity  of  Christ,  or  it  justi. 
fies  the  worship  of  the  saints  and  martyrs  in  the  Roman 
church ;  and  they  who  live  in  countries,  where  the  papal 
superstition  is  established,  may  without  scruple,  invo- 
cate  St  Michael,  St  Raphael,  St  Abel,  St  Abraham, 
St  Stephen,  St  Sebastian ;  and  all  the  saints,  angelick 
and  human,  Jewish  and  Christian,  of  the  Roman  cal- 
endar. 

3.  The  text  of  St  Paul  (Col.  i.  15.)  was  produced 
by  me,f  not  as  the  most  explicit  assertion  that  may  be 


beginning,  which  made  the  world — Dr  Priestley  says,  this  is  more  than  the 
Unitarians  believe  :  "  what  we  believe  is  •  ••  that  a  portion  only,  of  the  same 
wisdom  which  formed  the  universe,  was  communicated  to  Christ."  It  may  be 
so.  Far  be  it  from  roe  to  tax  Dr  Priestley,  or  his  brethren,  with  a  larger  faith 
than  they  profess ;  but  if  they  believe  no  more  than  Dr  Priestley  in  this  passage 
acknowledges,  they  believe  much  less  than  St  John  asserts,  in  the  most  reduced 
a^nse  of  his  expression!. 
*  Lette  XL  t  s««  Charge  p.  15. 


LET.  XV.  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 

found  in  Scripture,  of  our  Lord's  divinity :  but  as  au 
explicit  assertion,  that  he  is  at  least  something  much 
more  than  man,  and  that  the  universe  was  made  by  him. 
If  the  dignity  of  his  nature  were  mentioned,  only  in  this 
single  passage,  or  were  no  where  described  by  higher 
titles  than  those  which  the  apostle  uses  here ;  u  the 
image  of  the  invisible  God,  and  the  first-born  of  every 
creature,"  divinity  might  seem  more  than  is  implied  in 
them :  but  when  we  recollect  the  stronger  expressions, 
which  occur  in  other  places  ;  in  particular,  St  Paul's 
assertion,  that  he  was  originally  in  the  form  of  God,  of 
which  he  emptied  himself  to  take  the  form  of  a  servant, 
i.  e.  of  a  man  ;  and  when  to  all  other  proofs  of  the  high 
dignity  of  his  nature,  we  add  St  John's  explicit  doc- 
trine  of  his  eternity  and  Godhead  ;  it  must  be  very  evi- 
dent, that  it  could  not  be  the  intention  of  St   Paul, 
in  this  passage,  to  sink  the  Son  of  God  into  the  rank  of 
a  creature,  or  to  separate  him  from  the  Divine  nature. 
The  force  of  St  Paul's  description,  in  both  its  branches, 
lies  rather  in  the  adjectives,   invisible  and  jirst-born, 
than  in  the  substantives,  image  and  creature :  the  first 
branch  of  the  description,  that  "  he  is  the  image  of  the 
invisible  God,"  points  to  a  circumstance,  upon  which 
the  early  fathers  dwell,  as  one  of  the  principal  person- 
al distinctions :  that  it  is  in-  the  person  only  of  the  Son, 
that  the  glory  of  the  Godhead  can  be  rendered  visible — 
For  God,  in  the  person  of  the  Father,  no  man  hath  seen 
at  any  time.*    The  Son,  is  therefore  an  image  of  the 
Invisible  Deity  ;  not  as  a  likeness  formed  in  a  distinct 
substance,  but  as  he,  who,  in  every  instance  of  an  ira- 


i.  18;  and  vi.  4C. 


LETTERS  IN  REPLS  LET.  AT. 

mediate  intercourse  between  God  and  man,  bath  been 
tbe  appearing  person.*  The  second  branch  of  the  des- 
cription, holds  out  a  distinction  between  birth  and  crea- 
tion, which  implies,  that  the  Son's  existence  is  depen- 
dent on  the  Father's,  in  some  other  manner  than  that,  in 
which  any  creature's  existence  is  dependent  on  its  Ma- 
ker's.  You  must  know,  that  the  words  in  the  original 
text,  irpololouoe  TTOLWC  jc7wt«r«  are  equivalent  to  these  : 
e  re^S-c/f  57^0  -TTWW  ttlurtuf,  he  who  was  born  or  begotten 
before  any  creation,  or  before  any  thing  was  made. 
"  It  is  observable,  says  Dr  Clarke,  that  St  Paul  does 
not  here  call  our  Saviour  irfulo*TKov  TTOLWC  xVtwc,  the 
first  created  of  all  creatures,  but  TTfuloloKo*  irawc  Klicwr, 
the  first  born  of  every  creature;  the  first  begotten  be- 
fore all  creatures." 

4.  I  allow,  that  "  there  is  nothing  that  can  be  called 
an  account  of  the  divine  nature  of  Christ,  in  the  gospels 
of  St  Matthew,  St  Mark,  or  St  Luke  :"t  But,  every 
one  of  the  gospels  abounds  with  passages,  in  which  it  is 
so  evidently  implied,  that  no  room  is  left  to  doubt,  that 
the  four  evangelists,  had  but  one  opinion  upon  the  sub- 
ject :  I  cannot  admit  your  position,  that  "  each  of  the 
gospels,  was  intended  to  be  a  sufficient  instruction  in 
the  fundamental  principles  of  the  doctrine  of  Christian- 
ity ;"f  nothing  seems  to  have  been  less  the  intention  of 
any  of  the  evangelists,  than  to  compose  a  system  of  fun- 
damental principles — instruction  in  fundamentals,  in 
that  age,  was  orally  delivered ;  the  general  design  of 


*  image  of  the  invisible  God.  "  A  lively  description  of  the  person  of 

Christ ;  whereby  we  understand,  that  in  him  only  God  ahowcth  himself  U>  he 
seen."  Marginal  note,  in  Barker's  quarto  Bible,  1599. 

f  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  91.  *  Ibid. 


LET.  XV.  TO  DR.  PRIESTLEY. 

the  evangelists,  seems  to  have  been  nothing  more  than 
to  deliver  in  writing,  a  simple,  unembellished  narrative 
of  our  Lord's  principal  miracles  ;  to  record  the  occur- 
rences  and  actions  of  his  life,  which  went  immediately 
to  the  completion  of  the  ancient  prophecies,  or  to  the 
execution  of  the  scheme  of  man's  redemption  ;  and  to 
register  the  most  interesting  maxims  of  religion  and 
morality,  which  were  contained  in  his  discourses.  The 
principles  of  the  Christian  religion,  are  to  be  collected, 
neither  from  a  single  gospel,  nor  from  all  the  four  gos- 
pels ;  nor  from  the  four  gospels,  with  the  acts  and  the 
epistles ;  but  from  the  whole  code  of  revelation,  consis- 
ting of  the  canonical  books  of  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ment :  and  for  any  article  of  faith,  the  authority  of  a 
single  writer,  where  it  is  express  and  unequivocal,  is 
sufficient.  Had  St  Paul  related  what  be  saw  in  the 
\  tbird  heaven,  1  hope,  Sir,  you  would  have  given  him 
implicit  credit,  although  the  truth  of  the  narrative,  must 
have  rested  on  his  single  testimony. 

5.  I  cannot  however  grant,  that  the  general  tenor  of 
fe'cripture,  supposes  not  such  a  Trinity  as  I  contend 
fo\\*     I  contend,  that  your  doctrine  is  what  stands  upon 
particular  texts  ;  while  the  Catholick  faith,  is  supported 
by  the  general  tenor  of  the  sacred  writings,  and  by  the 
consent  of  those  writings,  in  many  parts,  with  an  uni- 
versal tradition  of  unexplored  antiquity. 

6.  You  ask  me,  "  why  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  if 
it  be  a  truth,  was  not  taught  as  explicitly  in  the  New 
Testament,  as  the  doctrine  of  the  Divine  unity,  both  in 
Old  and  New  ?"|  and  you  say,  « that  many  passages  in 


*  Letters  to  D?  Horsley,  p.  87.  Ibifi.  p. 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  XV- 

Scripture,  inculcate  the  doctrine  of  the  Divine  unity,  in 
the  clearest  and  strongest  manner  :"#  be  pleased,  Sir,  to 
produce  one  of  the  many  :  I  know  of  no  doctrine  of 
the  Divine  unity,  taught  either  in  the  Old  Testament  or 
in  the  New,  but  the  doctrine,  that  Jehovah,  the  God  of 
Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob  ;  the  Creator  of  heaven  and 
earth  ;  is  the  one  true  God,  in  opposition  to  the  variety 
of  imaginary  gods  worshipped  by  the  heathen  :|  con- 
cerning the  metaphysical  unity  of  the  Divine  nature,  the 
Scriptures  are  silent ;  except  that,  by  discovering  a  Tri- 
nity of  persons,  they  teach  clearly  what  the  unity  is  not ; 
namely,  that  it  is  not  personal :  if  you  imagine,  that  the 
absolute  unity  of  the  Divine  substance,  is  more  easy  to 
be  explained  than  the  Trinity ;  let  me  entreat  you,  Sir, 
to  read  the  Parmenides  :  it  is  indeed  in  Plato's  school^ 
if  any  where,  that  a  man's  eyes  are  likely  to  be  opened 
to  his  own  ignorance.  Read  the  Parmenides — you  will 
then  perhaps  perceive,  that  that  unity,  which  must  be 
the  foundation  of  all  being,  is  itself,  of  all  things,  the 
most  mysterious  and  incomprehensible.  I  must  know 
more  of  it  than  I  do,  before  I  can  pretend  to  perceive, 
what  is  so  clear  to  you,  that  you  think  that  I  cannot 
deny  it,  "  that  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  looks  like  an 
infringement  of  the  unity."J 

7.  The  argument  contained  in  the  seventh  section  of 
your  seventh  letter,  splits,  I  think,  into  three,  resting 
on  the  three  different  assumptions.  The  apostles,  both 
in  the  book  of  Acts,  and  in  their  epistles,  usually  call 


*  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  93. 
\  To  yuiv  yat^  Stsv  o^to?.c^«v  evai,  TJ^ 

$duw  Trade;.    Euseb.  Ecc.  Theol.  lib.  i.  c.  2. 
Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  92. 


XV.  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY.  355 

Christ  a  man ;  therefore  they  knew  not  that  he  was 
God  ;  for  the  discovery  would  have  changed  their  Ian- 
guage.* 

8.  They  speak  of  him  as  a  man,  in  reasoning  and  ar- 
gumentation.    Therefore  he  was  a  man.f 

9.  They  behaved  to  him  as  a  man,  in  their  ordinary 
intercourse  with  him  ;  therefore  they  had  no  apprehen- 
sion that  he  was  God.J 

10.  To  the  two  first  arguments,  it  is  an  answer,  that 
according  to  the  faith  which  I  defend,  Christ  is  truly  a 
man  as  well  as  God  :  it  is  no  wonder  therefore,  that  he 
should  be  mentioned  as  a  man,   when  nothing  in  the 
narrative,  or  in  the  argument,  requires  that  his  divinity 
should  be  particularly  brought  to  view. 

11.  To  the  first  argument  in  particular,  it  is  a  further 
answer ;  that  it  was  the  style  of  all  the  sacred  writers, 
and  it  is  the  style  of  all  writers,  to  name  things  rather 
after  their  appearances,   than  their  internal  forms  :  the 
tempter  you  know,  in  the  Mosaick  history  of  the  fall,  is 
called  the  serpent ;  and  is  not  once  mentioned  by  any 
other  name  :  the  three  angels,  who  appeared  to  Abra- 
ham in  the  form  of  men,  are  called  men,  throughout  the 
story. 

12.  To  the  second  argument  in  particular,  it  is  a  fur- 
ther answer ;  that,  as  the  scheme  of  man's  redemption, 
required  the  incarnation  of  the  Son  of  God ;  the  apos- 
tles, would  often  find  it  necessary  in  reasoning  upon 
that  scheme,  and  in  argumentation  in  defence  of  it,  to 
insist  on  his  humanity. 


*  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  93.  f  Ibid. 

t  Ibid.  93,  and  94. 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  XV, 

IS.  The  third  branch  of  the  argument,  cannot  be  al- 
lowed to  have  any  force  at  all,  even  though  the  assump- 
tion upon  which  it  rests  should  be  admitted,  if  we  have 
the  authority  of  the  apostles,  in  their  writings,  for  the 
deity  of  Christ ;  the  most  that  could  be  inferred,  were 
the  assumption  true,  would  be  something  strange  in 
their  conduct ;  and  even  this  might  be  a  hasty  infer- 
ence — the  singularity  of  their  conduct  might  disappear, 
if  the  accounts  which  they  have  left  of  our  Lord's  life 
on  earth,  and  of  their  attendance  upon  him,  were  more 
circumstantial :  but  the  truth  is,  that  the  foundations  of 
this  argument  are  unsound :  it  may  be  gathered  from 
the  evangelical  history,  imperfect  as  it  is,  that  the  beha- 
viour of  the  apostles  to  our  Lord  during  his  life,  posses- 
sed as  they  were  with  an  imperfect,  wavering  belief  in 
him  as  the  Messiah,  and  with  indistinct  notions  of  the 
Messiah's  divinity,  was  the  natural  behaviour  of  men 
under  these  impressions  :  they  treat  him,  upon  all  occa- 
sions, with  a  very  distant  reserve :  sometimes  they  in- 
voke  him  as  a  deity  ;  as  St  Peter,  when  he  was  sinking 
in  the  sea,  and  all  the  disciples,  in  the  storm.  Jf  the 
angels,  Michael  or  Gabriel,  should  come  and  live  among 
us,  in  the  manner  which  you  suppose,*  I  think  we 
should  soon  lose  our  habitual  recollection  of  their  an- 
gelick  nature ;  it  would  be  only  occasionally  awaked  by 
extraordinary  incidents :  This  at  least  would  be  the 
case,  if  they  mixed  with  us  upon  an  even  footing,  with- 
out assuming  any  badges  of  distinction,  wearing  a  com- 
mon garb,  partaking  of  our  lodging  and  of  our  board, 
suffering  in  the  same  degree  with  ourselves  from  hunger 


*  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  9i. 


LET.  XV. 


TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 


and  fatigue,  and  seeking  the  same  refreshments.  The 
wonder  would  he,  if  angels,  in  this  disguise,  met  with, 
aujr  other  respect,  than  that  which  dignity  of  character 
commands,  with  something  of  occasional  homage,  whea 
their  miraculous  help  was  needed.  This  was  the  res- 
pect  which  our  Lord  met  with  from  his  followers.  You 
say,  "he  could  not  divest  himself  of  his  superior  and  prop- 
er nature  :??*  but  St  Paul  says  quite  the  contrary,  —  that 
he  emptied  himself,  and  assumed  a  form,  which  set  out 
of  sight  the  transcendent  dignity  of  his  nature,  and  de- 
prived him  of  the  homage  due  to  it.  The  scheme  of 
man's  redemption  required  this  humiliation,  which  made 
'a  part  of  the  sufferings  by  which  our  guilt  was  to  be 
atoned. 

14-.  In  the  eighth  section  of  this  seventh  letter,  you  argue 
against  our  Lord's  divinity,  from  "  the  manner  in  which 
be  speaks  of  the  power  by  which  he  worked  miracles, 
as  not  his  own,  but  the  Father's  ;"f  and  from  the 
manner  in  which  he  speaks  of  himself,  saying,  My  Fa* 
ther  is  greater  than  I.  If  from  such  expressions,  you 
would  be  content  to  infer,  that  the  Almighty  Father  is 
indeed  the  fountain  and  the  centre  of  divinity;  and  that 
the  equality  of  Godhead  is  to  be  understood,  with  some 
mysterious  subordination  of  the  Son,  to  the  Father  ;  you 
would  have  the  concurrence  of  the  ancient  fathers,  and 
of  many  advocates  of  the  true  faith,  in  all  ages.  If  you 
would  infer  any  other  inferiority,  than  what  is  necessa- 
rily implied  in  the  relation  of  a  Son,  some  of  the  very 
passages  to  which  you  allude,  will  serve  to  your  confu- 
tation :  such  are  those  sayings  of  our  Lord,  recorded  in 


Letter?  *•  Dr  Hersley,  p.  24.  f  Rud.  p.  9$. 

33 


258  LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  XV. 

St  John's  gospel,  that  «  the  Son  can  do  nothing  of 
himself* — the  word  which  you  hear,  is  not  mine,  but  the 

Father's  which  sent  mef the  Father  which  dwel- 

leth  in  me,  he  doeth  the  works  :'?J  refer  the  expressions 
to  the  context,  and  it  will  appear,  that,  with  something 
of  a  subordination  on  the  part  of  the  Son,  they  assert 
the  most  perfect  identity  of  nature,  the  most  entire  unity 
of  will,  and  consent  of  intellect,  and  an  incessant  coop- 
eration  in  the  exertion  of  common  powers  to  a  common 
purpose.  You  are,  Sir,  very  positive  in  the  assertion, 
that  Dr  Waterland  in  particular,  and  all  the  strict  Atha- 
nasians  of  the  last  age,  maintained,  "  that  the  Trinity 
consists  of  three  persons,  all  truly  independent  of  eack 
other  :"||  upon  this  opinion,  which  you  ascribe  to  the 
strict  Athanasians,  you  remark  in  your  History,^  that 
to  make  three  proper  distinct  persons,  independent  of 
each  other,  is  to  make  three  distinct  gods.  I  concur 
with  you  in  this  remark,  in  which  you  have  been  anti- 
cipated by  the  Roman  Dionysius  ;  whose  judgment  you 
know,  upon  certain  persons  of  his  own  time,  who,  ia 
their  zeal  against  Sabellius,  ran  into  this  error,  "  is 
quoted  with  approbation  by  Athanasius  himself  ;"T[  but, 
Sir,  I  deny,  of  Dr  Waterland  in  particular,  and  of  thft 
strict  Athanasians  of  the  last  age  in  general,  that  they 
fall  justly  under  this  censure. 

15.  Bishop  Bull,  in  his  defence  of  the  Nicene  faith, 
spends  a  whole  chapter,  and  a  very  long  chapter  it  is, 
upon  the  subject  of  the  Son's  subordination  ;  which  he 


•  John  v.  19.  f  Ibid-  xir-  24»  *  Ibid-  xiv>  10' 

•j  Letters  to  Dr  Hortley,  p.  80.  §  Vol.  i.  p.  147, 

U  See  Dr  Priestley's  Hist.  vol.  i,  p.  65 ;  and  the  first  of  these  Letters, 


LET.  XV.  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 

maintains  to  be  as  much  a  branch  of  the  true  faith,  as 
the  doctrine  of  the  Sou's  eternity  or  consubstantiality. 

16.  The  same  thing  is  asserted  by  Bishop  Pearson, 
in  his  exposition  of  the  apostles  creed :  he  observes, 
that  "  in  the  very  name  of  Father,  there  is  something  of 
eminence,  which  is  not  in  that  of  Son ;  and  something 
of  priority  we  must  ascribe  unto  the  first,  in  respect  of 

the  second  person."*    " We  must  not  therefore 

so  far  endeavour  to  involve  ourselves  in  the  darkness  of 
this  mystery,  as  to  deny  that  glory  which  is  clearly  due 
unto  the  Father — he  is  God,  not  of  any  other,  but  of 

himself  5 there  is  no  other  person  who  is  God,  but  is 

God  of  him  : — it  is  no  diminution  of  the  Son  to  say,  he 
is  from  another — but  it  were  a  diminution  of  the  Father 
to  speak  so  of  him  ;  and  there  must  be  some  preemi- 
nence, where  there  is  a  place  for  derogation — the  first 
person  is  a  Father  indeed,  by  reason  of  his  Son,  but 
he  is  not  God  by  reason  of  him ;  whereas,  the  Son  is 
not  only  Son  in  regard  of  the  Father,  but  also  God,  by 
reason  of  the  same."f  Upon  this  preeminence  of  the 
Father,  the  learned  Bishop  founds  the  congruity  of  the 
Divine  mission  ;J  and  he  maintains,  that  "  the  dignity 
ef  the  Father  appears,  from  the  order  of  persons  in  the 
blessed  Trinity,  of  which  he  is  undoubtedly  the  first. 
Although  in  some  passages  of  the  apostolical  discourses, 

the  Son  may  be  first  named and  in  others  the  Holy 

Ghost  precede  the  Son yet,  where  the  three  persons 

*re  barely  enumerated,  and  delivered  unto  us  as  the 
frule  of  faith,  there  that  order  is  observed,  which  is  pro- 
per to  them this  order  hath  been  perpetuated  in  all 


*  Pearson  on  the  creed,  f .  34.  -j-  Ibid.  i  Ibid.  p.  37. 


260  LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  J\T, 

confessions  of  faith,  and  is  for  ever  to  be  inviolably  ob* 
served  :"*  and  this  order  being  so  generally  acknowl- 
edged by  the  Fathers,  the  bishop  remarks  in  a  note, 
that,  "  when  we  read  in  the  Athanasian  creed,  that  in 
this  Trinity  none  is  afore  or  after  other,  we  must  un- 
derstand the  negation  of  the  priority  of  perfection  or 
time."f 

17»  To  the  same  purpose,  the  learned  Mr  William 
Stephens,  author  of  some  able  discourses  on  the  Trini- 
ty, in  his  sermon  On  the  Eternal  Generation  of  the 
Son  of  God,  preached  before  the  university  of  Oxford, 
August  5th  172S,  affirms ;  that  "  on  the  communication 
of  the  Godhead  from  the  Father  to  the  son — is  founded 
and  established,  all  that  subordination  which  we  assert 
among  the  persons  of  the  Trinity" — he  adds,  that  "  un- 
less some  subordination  be  maintained,  we  run  into 
Tritheism."  For  he  agrees  with  you  and  me,  that 
"  three  co-ordinate  persons,  would  be  manifestly  three 
gods." 

18.  The  same  sentiments  are  acknowledged  by  Dr 
Waterland,  in  his  commentary  on  the  Athanasian  creed  : 
«  When  it  is  said,  none  is  afore  or  after  other,  we  are 
not  to  understand  it  of  order ;  for  the  Father  is  first,  the 
Son  second,  the  Holy  Ghost  third  in  order.  Neither 
are  we  to  understand  it  of  office ;  for  the  Father  is 
supreme  in  office,  while  the  Son  and  Holy  Ghost, 
condescend  to  inferior  offices :  but  we  are  to  understand 
it,  as  the  creed  itself  explains  it,  of  duration  and  dig- 
nity."} 


*  Pearson  on  the  creed,  p.  37". 
4  Watt-viand  on  the  Athanasian  creed,  p.  144. 


.  AT.  TO  »R  PRIESTLEY.  «6l 


19.  From  these  passages  it  appears,  that  you  misre. 
present  the  strict  Athanasians  of  the  last  age,  when  you 
charge  them  with  asserting  such  a  separation  and  inde- 
pendence of  the  three  persons,  as  would  amount  to  Tri- 
theism  :  and  you  misrepresent  me,  when  you  insinuate, 
that  I  would  set  the  three  persons  at  a  greater  distance, 
than  the  Athauasians  of  the  last  age  allowed  :  I  main. 
tain,  that  the  Three  Persons  are  one  Being  ;  One  by 
mutual  relation,  indissoluble  connexion,  and  gradual 
subordination  :  so  strictly  One,  that  any  individual 
thing,  in  the  whole  world  of  matter  and  of  spirit,  pre- 
sents but  a  faint  shadow  of  their  unity.  I  maintain, 
that  each  person  by  himself  is  God  ;  because  each  pos- 
sesses fully  every  attribute  of  the  Divine  nature;  but  I 
maintain,  that  these  persons  are  all  included  in  the  very 
idea  of  a  God  ;  and  that  for  that  reason,  as  well  as  for 
the  identity  of  the  attributes  in  each,  it  were  impious 
and  absurd  to  say,  there  are  three  Gods  —  for,  to  say 
there  are  three  Gods,  were  to  say  there  are  three  Fa- 
thers, three  Sons,  and  three  Holy  Ghosts  :  I  maintain 
the  equality  of  the  three  persons,  in  all  the  attributes  of 
the  Divine  nature  —  I  maintain  their  equality  in  rank 
and  authority,  with  respect  to  all  created  things,  what- 
ever relations  or  differences  may  subsist  between  them- 
selves :  Differences  there  must  be,  lest  we  confound  the 
persons,  which  was  the  error  of  Sabellius  :  but  the  dif- 
ferences can  only  consist  in  the  personal  properties,  lest 
we  divide  the  substance,  and  make  a  plurality  of  inde- 
pendent gods.  It  will  not  put  me  out  of  conceit  with 
the  arguments,  which  I  have  brought  to  support  these 
sacred  truths,  or  with  the  illustrations  which  I  have  at- 
tempted, that  you  pronounce  them  equal  in  absurdity  to 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  XV- 

any  thing  in  the  Jewish  cabala,*  (of  which  I  suspect 
you  hardly  know  enough  to  judge  with  certainty  of 
this  pretended  resemblance,)  or  that  you  imagine, 
when  you  read  me,  that  you  are  reading  Peter  Lom- 
bard, Thomas  Aquinas,  or  Duns  Scotus  :f  perhaps, 
Sir,  though  a  Protestant  divine,  I  may  sometimes  con- 
descend to  look  into  the  Summa^  and  may  be  less  mor- 
tified, than  you  conceive,  with  this  comparison.  It  was 
well  meant  however,  and  is  one  of  those  general  depre- 
ciatory insinuations,  which  are  apt  to  catch  the  vulgar, 
and  may  serve  the  purpose  of  a  reply,  upon  any  occa- 
sion,  when  a  real  reply  is  not  to  be  framed. 
I  am,  &c. 


*  letters  to  Dr  Horslcy,  p.  80.        f  Ibid.  p.  99. 

$ no  Protestant,  I  imagine,  will  ever  thiuk  it  worth  his  while  to  read 

roany  sections  to  that  work— the  Summa.    Hist,  of  Corrup.  vol.  i.  p.  119. 


LET.  XVL  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 


LETTER  SIXTEENTH. 

TJie  Unitarian  doctrine,  not  well  calculated  for  the 
conversion  of  Jewst  Mahometans,  or  Infidels  of  any 
description. 

DEAR  SIR, 

You  express  in  your  history,  and  in  your  letters  t« 
me,  a  very  charitable  anxiety  about  Jews,  Mahometans, 
and  Infidels  :  it  is  one  of  your  great  objections  to  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  that  it  is,  as  you  conceive,  an 
obstruction  to  their  conversion  ;  which  you  think  might 
be  speedily  effected,  by  reducing  Christianity  to  the 
Unitarian  creed.  My  notion  is,  that  it  is  our  duty  to 
adhere  to  the  letter  of  the  gospel ;  and  to  leave  it  to 
God  to  open  the  eyes  of  Jews,  Mahometans,  and  InfL 
dels,  in  his  own  time,  and  in  his  own  way.  Your  de- 
vice of  bringing  them  to  believe  Christianity,  by  giving 
the  name  of  Christianity  to  what  they  already  believe, 
in  principle,  exactly  resembles  the  stratagem  of  a  cer- 
tain missionary  of  the  Jesuits,  of  whom  I  have  some, 
where  read ;  who,  in  his  zeal  for  the  conversion  of  an 
Indian  chief,  on  whom  the  sublimity  of  the  doctrine  of 
the  gospel,  and  the  purity  of  its  moral  precepts,  made 
little  impression,  told  him, — that  Christ  had  been  a 
valiant  and  successful  warrior,  who,  in  the  space  of 
three  years,  scalped  men,  women,  and  children,  with- 
out number :  the  savage  was  well  disposed  to  become 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LEV.  XVt 

a  disciple  of  such  a  master — he  was  baptized,  with 
his  whole  tribe,  and  the  Jesuit  gloried  in  his  numerous 
converts. 

2.  Pardon  me,  Sir,  if  I  express  a  doubt  whether  your 
stratagem  promise  equal  success  :   for  the  Jews,  when- 
ever they  begin  to  open  their  eyes  to  the  evidences  of 
our  Saviour's  mission,  they  will  still  be  apt  to  consider 
the  New  Testament,  in  connexion  with  the  Old  :  they 
will  look  for  an  agreement,  in  principle  at  least,  between 
the  gospel  and  the  law  :  when  they  accept  the  Christian 
doctrine,  it  will  be  as  a  later  and  a  fuller  discovery  : 
they  will  reject  it,  if  they  conceive  it  to  be  contradictory 
to  the  patriarchal  and  the  Mosaick  revelations.     Suc- 
cessive discoveries  of  divine  truth  may  differ,  they  will 
say,  in  fullness  and  perspicuity ;  but  in  principle  they 
must  harmonize,  as  parts  of  one  system  :  they  will  re- 
tain some  veneration  for  their  traditional  doctrines  ;  and 
in  their  most  ancient  Targums,  as  well  as  in  allusions 
in  their  sacred  books,  they  will  find  the  notion  of  one 
Godhead  in  a  Trinity  of  persons ;  and  they  will  per- 
ceive, that  it  was  in  contradiction  to  the  Christians,  that 
their  later  rabbin  abandoned  the  notions  of  their  forefa- 
thers.    The  Unitarian  scheme  of  Christianity,  is  the 
last  therefore,  to  which  the  Jews  are  likely  to  be  con- 
verted, as  it  is  the  most  at  enmity  with  their  ancient 
faith. 

3.  With  the  Mahometans  indeed,  your  prospects  may 
seem  more  promising ;  as  the  whole  difference  between 
you  and  them,  geems  very  inconsiderable.     The  true 
Mussulman,  believes  as  much,  or  rather  more  of  Christ, 
than  the  Unitarian  requires  to  be  believed  ;  and  though 
the  Unitarians  have  not  yet  recognized  the  divine  mis- 
sion of  Mahomet,  there  is  good  ground  to  think,  they 


LET.  XVf.  TO  DR.  PRIESTLEY. 

will  not  long  stand  out  :*  in  Unitarian  writings  of  the 
last  century,  it  is  allowed  of  Mahomet,  that  he  had  no 
other  design  than  to  restore  the  belief  of  the  unity  of 
God — of  his  religion,  that  it  was  not  meant  for  a  new 
religion,  but  for  a  restitution  of  the  true  intent  of  the 
Christian— of  the  grand  prevalence  of  the  Mahometan 
religion,  that  it  hath  been  owing,  not  to  force  and  the 
sword,  but  to  that  one  truth  contained  in  the  Alcoran, 
the  unity  of  God.  "With  these  friendly  dispositions 
towards  each  other,  it  should  seem,  that  the  Mahometan 
and  the  Unitarian  might  easily  be  brought  to  agree — but 
the  experiment  hath  been  very  seriously  tried,  without 
any  event  answerable  to  the  expectation :  you  may  not 
know  it,  Sir,  but  so  it  was, — that  in  the  reign  of  Charles 
the  Second,  a  negociation  was  regularly  opened,  on  the 
part  of  our  English  Unitarians,  with  his  excellency 
Ameth  Ben  Ameth,  ambassador  of  the  emperor  of  Mo- 
rocco at  the  British  court,  in  order  to  form  an  alliance 
with  the  Mahometan  prince,  for  the  more  effectual 
propagation  of  the  Unitarian  principles  :  The  two  Uni- 
tarian divines,  who  undertook  this  singular  treaty,  ad* 
dress  the  ambassador  and  the  Mussulmen  of  his  suite,, 
as  "  votaries  and  fellow -worshippers  of  the  sole  supreme 
Deity."  They  return  thanks  to  God,  that  he  hath  pre. 


*  Dr  Priestley,  in  his  Second  Letters,  p.  1C3,  wittily  remarks,  "  that  I  might 
almost  as  well  assert,  that  alt  the  Unitarians  in  England  are  already  so  far  Mahom- 
etans, that,  to  my  certain  knowledge,  they  are  actually  circumcised."  Upon  this 
occasion,  I  cannot  but  remind  him  of  what  history  records,  of  an  elder  brother 
of  our  modern  Unitarians.  In  the  latter  end  of  the  sixteenth  century,  Adan* 
Neuser,  pastor  of  the  church  of  Heidelberg,  the  first,  or  among  the  first  propa- 
gators of  the  Socinian  heresy  in  the  Palatinate,  began  in  Sociniaaism,  and  finish- 
ed his  career  with  turning  Mahometan,  and  submitting  to  circuracinion,  at'1"' 
»Uintinople. 


266  LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  XVI. 

served  the  emperor  of  Morocco,  and  his  subjects,  in  the 
excellent  knowledge  of  one  only  sovereign  God,  who 
hath  no  distinction  nor  plurality  of  persons  ;  and  in 
many  other  wholesome  doctrines  :  they  say,  that  they, 
with  their  pens,  defend  the  faith  of  one  supreme  God, 
and  that  God  raised  up  Mahomet  to  do  the  same  with 
the  sword,  as  a  scourge  on  idolizing  Christians — they 
therefore  style  themselves,  the  fellow-champions  with 
the  Mahometans,  for  these  truths — they  offer  their  as- 
si  stance,  to  purge  the  Alcoran  of  certain  corruptions  and 
interpolations  ;  which,  after  the  death  of  Mahomet,  had 
crept  into  his  papers,  of  which  the  Alcoran  was  com- 
posed ;  for,  of  Mahomet  they  think  too  highly,  to  sup- 
pose  that  he  could  be  guilty  of  the  many  repugnancies, 
which  are  to  be  found  in  the  writings  that  go  under  his 
name.  This  work  they  declare  themselves  willing  to 
undertake,  for  the  vindication  of  Mahomet's  glory  :  they 
intimate,  that  the  corrections  which  they  would  propose, 
would  render  the  Alcoran  more  consistent,  not  with 
itself  only,  but  with  the  gospel  of  Christ :  of  which, 
they  say,  Mahomet  pretended  to  be  but  a  preacher — 
they  tell  the  ambassador,  that  the  Unitarian  Christians 
are  a  great  and  considerable  people  :  to  give  weight  to 
the  assertion,  they  enumerate  the  hseresiarchs  of  all  age* 
who  have  opposed  the  Trinity,  from  Paulus  Samosaten- 
sis,  down  to  Faustus  Socinus,  and  the  leaders  of  the 
Polonian  fraternity :  they  celebrate  the  modern  tribes 
of  Arianizing  Christians,  as  asserters  of  the  proper 
unity  of  God ;  and  they  close  the  honourable  list,  with 
the  Mahometans  themselves.  "  All  these  (they  say) 
maintain  the  faith  of  one — God  :  and  why  should  we 
forget  to  add  you  Mahometans,  who  also  consent  with 
us  m  the  belief  of  oue  only  supreme  Deity  ?"  Such  ig 


LET.  XVI.  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 

the  substance  of  a  letter,  which  they  presented  to  the 
ambassador,  with  some  Latin  manuscripts,  respecting 
the  differences  between  Christianity  and  the  Mahome- 
tan  religion,  and  containing  an  ample  detail  of  the  Uni- 
tarian tenets  ;  they  apply  to  the  Mussulman  as  to  a  per- 
son of  "  known  discernment  in  spiritual  and  sublime 
matters ;"  and  they  intreat  him,  to  communicate  the 
import  of  their  manuscripts,  to  the  consideration  of  the 
fittest  persons  of  his  countrymen.  This  singular  epistle 
may  be  seen  entire,  in  Dr  Leslie's  Sociman  Controver- 
sy Discussed — an  hundred  years  are  almost  elapsed, 
since  these  overtures  were  made  to  the  Moor ;  and  as 
no  effect  hath  yet  followed,  it  should  seem,  that  the 
conversion  of  the  Mahometans  to  the  Unitarian  Chris- 
tianity, is  as  unlikely  as  that  of  the  Jews. 

4.  For  the  unbelievers,  Sir,  Mr  Gibbon,  as  you  seem 
yourself  to  intimate,  hath  given  you  but  slender  hopes  :* 
unbelievers  indeed  are  of  two  descriptions — the  sober 
Deists;  who,  rejecting  revelation,  acknowledge  howev- 
er the  obligations  of  morality ;  believe  a  Provideuce ; 
and  expect  a  future  retribution  :  and  the  Atheists ;  who* 
have  neither  hope  nor  fear  beyond  the  present  life  ; 
deny  the  Providence  of  God ;  and  doubt  at  least  of  his 
existence. 

5.  Infidels  of  the  first  description,  will  hardly  become 
your  disciples  ;  because  you  have  nothing  to  teach  them, 
but  what  they  think  they  know  :  "  We  think,  they  will 
say,  no  less  reverently  than  you  of  the  moral  attributes 
of  God :  upon  our  notions  of  his  attributes,  we  build  an 


•  «*•••  •  •  Mr  Gibbon  has  absolutely  declined  to  discuss  with  me,  as  I  pro- 
posed to  him,  the  historical  evidences  of  Christiaaity."  Preface  to  Reply  to 
JW»nthIr  Review,  for  June,  p.  8. 


268  LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  XVt, 

expectation  of  a  future  existence ;  and  we  look  for  a  lot 
of  happiness  or  misery,  in  our  future  life,  according  to 
our  deserts  in  this.  The  whole  difference  between  you 
and  us  is  this  :  that  we  believe  the  same  things  upou 
different  evidence ;  you,  upon  the  testimony  of  a  man, 
who,  you  say,  was  raised  up  to  preach  these  truths ;  we, 
upon  the  evidence  of  reason  ;  which  we  think  a  higher 
evidence  than  any  human  testimony  :  we  think,  that  a 
revelation  is  pretended  with  a  very  ill  grace,  when  no- 
thing hath  been  actually  revealed.  Revelation  is  dis- 
covery :  the  doctrines  of  a  God,  a  Providence,  and  a 
future  state,  were  known  to  the  Jews  before  Christ ;  to 
the  patriarchs  before  Moses ;  they  have  been  known  to 
thinking  men  in  all  ages ;  and  there  can  be  no  place 
for  discovery,  where  there  hath  been  no  concealment." 
If  you  would  say,  that  the  end  of  revelation  is,  to  ex- 
tend to  all  mankind  that  useful  knowledge,  which  must 
otherwise  have  been  enjoyed  but  by  a  few  ;  to  convey 
information  by  testimony,  to  those  who  are  incapable  of 
informing  themselves  by  abstract  reasoning;  that  the 
gospel  is  therefore  a  revelation^  because,  to  the  bulk  of 
mankind  it  is  a  discovery,  and  a  discovery  of  sufficient 
importance  to  claim  a  divine  original ;  they  will  reply, 
that  whatever  weight  this  argument  might  carry,  if  it 
were  urged  by  those,  who  take  the  Scriptures  in  their 
literal  meaning,  and  conceive  that  the  revelation  is  con- 
veyed in  a  plain  undisguised  language ;  it  is  a  feeble 
weapon  in  the  hand  of  an  Unitarian.  "  If  your  method 
of  inter  pi  etaf  ion  be  the  true  one,  the  first  preachers  of 
Christianity,  they  will  say,  differed  not  from  other 
moralists,  otherwise  than  by  the  wonderful  obscurity  of 
their  language,  and  the  air  of  mystery,  which  they  have 
contrived  to  throw  over  the  simplest  truths ;  their  enig- 


LET.  XVI.  TO  DU  PRIESTlEV, 

inatick  language,  is  as  little  adapted  to  popular  appre- 
hension, as  the  abstruse  reasonings  of  philosophers  :  the 
success  of  their  doctrine  hath  been  such,  as  might  have 
been  well  foreseen  :  they  were  studious  of  obscurity—- 
they have  attained  their  end  :  they  have  been  misunder- 
stood by  a  great  majority  of  their  followers,  for  almost 
two  thousand  years — they  professed  to  teach  the  pure 
worship  of  the  true  God — the  language  in  which  they 
conveyed  their  doctrine,  hath  been  the  means  of  intro- 
ducing the  grossest  idolatry.  We  will  not  trust  our- 
selves  to  such  dangerous  guides,  who,  as  you  expound 
their  writings,  never  spake  upon  the  most  interesting 
subjects,  without  figure  and  equivocation." 

6.  For  the  Atheistick  infidels,  who  are  in  the  first 
place  to  be  convinced  of  the  existence  of  a  Deity  ;  your 
doctrine,  that  there  is  no  mind  in  man,  but  what  results 
from  the  organization  of  the  brain,  will  never  lead 
them  to  conclude,  that  mind  is  older  than  body,  in  the 
universe.  "  You  would  persuade  me,  the  Atheist  will 
say,  that  there  is  an  higher  intellect  than  mine,  the 
cause  of  all  things  :  but  if  intellect  in  me,  be  the  result 
of  motion,  why  not  in  any  other  intelligent  ?  You  only 
confirm  my  incredulity,  and  multiply  my  doubts — you 
make  me  doubt  of  my  own  intellect,  while  you  would 
account  for  its  production  ;  and  you  confirm  the  suspi- 
cion, which  I  have  long  entertained,  that  the  material 
world  is  older  than  its  supposed  maker :  that  mind,  if 
indeed  such  a  thing  exist,  hath,  like  all  other  things, 
started  spontaneously  from  a  corporeal  chaos  ;  and,  in- 
stead of  being  the  first  cause  and  the  governing  princi- 
ple, is  the  youngest  of  all  nature's  productions."  Your 
principle,  that  death  is  an  utter  extinction  of  the  man, 
your  Atheistical  pupil  will  easily  admit  ;  but  it  is  little 


LETTERS  IN  21EPLY  LET.  XVI 

likely  to  awaken  him  to  the  hope  of  a  future  existence  : 
the  hope  which  you  hold  out  of  a  resurrection,  he  will 
tell  you,,  is  no  hope  at  all,  even  admitting  that  the  evi- 
dence of  the  thing  could,  upon  your  principles,  he  indis- 
putable. "  The  atoms  which  compose  me,  your  Athe- 
ist will  say,  may  indeed  have  composed  a  man  before, 
and  may  again  ;  but  me  they  will  never  more  compose, 
when  once  the  present  me  is  dissipated — I  have  no 
recollection  of  a  former,  and  no  concern  about  a  future 
self. 

Et  nuna  nilul  nd  nas  de  nobis  attinet,  ante 
Qui  fuimus ;  nee  jam  de  illis  nos  afficit  angor, 
Quos  de  materid  nostra  nova  proferet  setas. 


Inter  enira  jecta  est  vital  pausa,  vageque 
Deeraruut  passim  motua  ab  sensibas  omnes." 

7.  It  should  seem,  Sir,  that  your  doctrines  are  ill 
calculated  for  the  conversion  of  Jews  or  Infidels :  upon 
the  Mahometans,  their  efficacy  hath  been  tried  without 
success.  The  Unitarians,  therefore,  are  not  likely  to  be 
the  instruments  of  these  conversions. 

I  am,  &G. 

N.  B.  The  story  of  the  negociation  on  the  part  of  the 
English  Unitarians,  in  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second, 
with  the  ambassador  of  the  emperor  of  Morocco ;  Dr 
Priestley,  in  the  fifteenth  of  his  Second  Letters,  is  plea- 
sed  to  treat  with  great  contempt,  as  an  invention,  that  is 
to  say,  a  lie  or  forgery,  of  Dr  Leslie's  :  fortunately,  the 
evidence  of  this  extraordinary  fact,  is  yet  extant  in 
the  Archiepiscopal  Library  at  Lambeth.  Among  the 
Codices  Manuscripti  Tenisoniani,  is  a  thin  folio,  mark- 
ed with  the  number  673,  and  entered  in  the  catalogue, 


LET.  JTF/.  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 

under  the  article  Socinians,  by  the  title  of  Systema 
Theologice  Sociniance.  It  contains  four  tracts :  the  first, 
is  the  very  letter  to  Ameth  Ben  Ameth,  published  by 
Dr  Leslie,  written  in  a  very  fair  hand  ;  on  the  prece- 
ding leaf,  are  these  remarks.  "  These  are  the  original 
papers,  which  a  cabal  of  Socinians  in  London,  offered 
to  present  to  the  Embassadour  of  the  King  of  Fez  and 
Morocco,  when  he  was  taking  leave  of  England,  Au- 
gust 1682.  The  said  Embassadour,  refused  to  receive 
them,  after  having  understood  that  they  concerned  reli- 
gion. The  agent  of  the  Socinians  was  Mun&ieur  Verze  : 
Sir  Charles  Cottrell,  Kn.  Mr  of  the  Cerem.  then  prse- 
gent,  desired  he  might  have  them  ;  which  was  graunted  : 
and  he  brought  them  and  gave  them  to  me,  Thomag 
Tenison,  then  Vicar  of  St  Martin'g  in  the  Fields, 
Middl." 

The  second  tract  is  in  Latin,  entitled,  Fpistola 
JLmcth  Benundula  Mahometani  ad  Jluriacum  Princi- 
pem  Comitum  Mauritium,  et  ad  Emmanuelem  Portu- 
•allicB  Prindpem. 

The  third  tract  is  again  in  Latin,  entitled,  JLnimad- 
versiones  in  pr&cedentem  Epistolam.  These  two  tracts 
are  the  Latin  letter,  and  the  remarks  of  the  Unitarian 
divines  upon  it,  which  are  mentioned  in  the  English 
letter  to  Ameth  Ben  Ameth,  and  of  which  Dr  Leslie,  in 
his  preface,  says  he  had  seen  a  printed  copy. 

The  fourth  tract,  I  take  to  be  the  preface  to  the  print- 
ed edition,  or  intended  edition :  this  also  is  in  Latin, 
and  is  inscribed  TJieognis  Irenwus  Christiana  Lectori 
salutem. 

I  do  most  solemnly  aver,  that  1  have  this  day,  Jan. 
15,  1789,  compared  the  letter  to  Ameth  Ben  Ameth,  as 
published  by  Dr  Leslie,  ia  his  Socinian  Controversy 


LETTERS  IN  REPJLY  iET.  AT/ 

Discussed,  with  the  manuscript  in  the  Archbishop's 
Library,  and  find  that  the  printed  copy,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  some  trivial  typographical  errors,  which  in  no 
way  affect  the  sense,  and  are  such  as  any  reader  will 
discover  and  correct  for  himself,  is  exactly  conformable 
to  the  manuscript,  without  the  omission  or  addition  of  a 
single  word :  I  do  moreover  aver,  that  the  remarks  in 
the  leaf,  at  the  beginning  of  the  manuscript,  giving  an 
account  of  its  contents,  and  of  the  manner  in  which  these 
papers  came  into  the  possession  of  Dr  Tenison,  were 
this  same  day  copied  verbatim  from  the  manuscript  by 
myself,  upon  the  spot. 

If  Dr  Priestley  should  mistrust  my  veracity  in  these 
assertions,  (which  I  think  he  will  not,)  I  promise  him 
that  I  will  at  any  time  use  my  endeavours  to  procure 
him  a  sight  of  the  manuscript,  that  he  may  satisfy  him* 
self. 


LET.  XV II  TO  DR  PRlESTLflT. 


LETTER  SEVENTEENTH. 

The  archdeacon  takes  leave  of  the  controversy. 

DEAR  SIR, 

IT  might  be  but  consistent  with  the  pride,  which 
you  impute  to  me  as  a  churchman,  and  with  the  co?i- 
temptuous  airs,  which  I  am  apt  to  give  myself  with 
respect  to  dissenters  ;*  were  I  to  close  our  present  cor- 
respondence, without  any  notice  of  your  animadversions 
upon  that  part  of  ray  Charge,  which  regards  the  studies 
of  the  younger  clergy,  and  what  you  are  pleased  to  call 
my  terms  of  communion.  It  might  be  a  sufficient,  and 
not  an  unbecoming  reply,  to  remind  you,  that  I  spoke 
ex  cathedra,  and  hold  myself  accountable  for  the  advice 
which  L  gave,  to  no  human  judicature,  except  the  KING, 
the  Metropolitan,  and  my  Diocesan.  This  would  in- 
deed be  the  only  answer,  which  I  should  condescend 
to  give  to  any  one  for  whom  I  retained  not,  under  all 
our  differences,  a  very  considerable  degree  of  personal 
esteem ;  but  as  Dr  Priestley  is  my  adversary,  in  some 
points,  I  could  wish  to  set  him  right,  and  in  some  I 
desire  to  explain. 


*  "If  your  pride  as  a  churchman,  and  the  contemptuous  airs  you  give  yourself 
with  respect  to  tlisaenters,  kc."    Letters  to  DrHorsley,  p.  113. 

Q* 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  XVII. 

3.  If  I  have  any  where  expressed  myself  contemp- 
tuously, the  contempt  is  not  of  you,  but  of  your  argument 
upon  a  particulr  subject,  upon  which  I  truly  think  you 
argue  very  weakly ;  and  of  your  information  upon  a 
point,  in  which  I  truly  think  you  are  ill  informed :  this 
hinders  not,  but  that  I  may  entertain  the  respect,  which 
I  profess,  for  your  learning  in  other  subjects  ;  for  your 
abilities,  in  all  subjects  in  which  you  are  learned  ;  and 
a  cordial  esteem  and  affection  for  the  virtues  of  your 
character,  which  I  believe  to  be  great  and  amiable. 
Your  attack  being  made,  upon  those  parts  of  the  esta- 
blished faith,  which  I  conceive  to  be  fundamental 
principles  of  the  Christian  religion,  I  hold  it  my  duty 
to  show  the  weakness  of  your  reasoning ;  to  expose 
your  insufficiency  in  these  subjects ;  and  to  bear  my 
testimony  aloud,  against  your  doctrine.  Between  duty 
to  God  and  to  his  church,  and  respect  for  man,  it  were 
criminal  to  hesitate.  Upon  any  occasion,  wherein  com- 
plaisance might  be  allowed  to  operate,  you  are  the  last 
person,  whose  feelings  I  would  have  wounded. 

8.  You  seem  to  think,  that  1  secretly  suspect  you  of 
artifices,  which  are  incompatible  with  that  purity  of  in- 
tention, which  I  would  seem  willing  to  allow.*  la 
your  last  pamphlet,  you  complain,  that  1  have  charged 
you  with  several  instances  of  gross  disingenuity.f  f 
am  sensible,  that,  in  these  letters,  you  will  find  more, 
and  stronger  instances  of  charges,  which  you  will  ba 
apt  to  interpret  as  unfavourably  ;  and  this,  I  fear  will 
heighten  the  suspicion  which  you  express,  that  even 


*  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  12. 

f  Remarks  on  Monthly  Review  p.  12,  note. 


r.  XVlt  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 

the  compliments  I  sometimes  pay  you,  are  ironically 
meant** 

4.  Indeed,  Sir,  in  quoting  ancient  authors,  when  you 
have  understood  the  original,  which  in  many  instances 
is  not  the  case,  you  have  too  often  heen  guilty  of  much 
reserve  and  management:  this  appears,  in  some  in- 
stances, in  which  you  cannot  preteml,  that  your  own  in- 
advertency, or  your  printer's,  hath  given  occasion  to 
unmerited  imputations  :  I  wish  that  my  complaints  upon 
this  head  had  heen  groundless ;  but,  in  justice  to  my 
own  cause,  I  could  not  suffer  unfair  quotations  to  pass 
undetected  :  I  am  unwilling  to  draw  any  conclusion 
from  this  unseemly  practice,  against  the  general  probity 
of  your  character;  but  you  must  allow  me  to  lament,  that 
men  of  integrity,  in  the  service  of  what  they  think  a 
good  end,  should  indulge  themselves  so  freely  as  they 
often  do,  in  the  use  of  unjustifiable  means.  Time  was, 
when  the  practice  was  openly  avowed ;  and  Origen 
himself  was  among  its  defenders — the  art  which  he 
Tecommended,  he  scrupled  not  to  employ  :  I  have  pro- 
duced an  instance,  in  which,  to  silence  an  adversary, 
lie  had  recourse  to  the  wilful  and  deliberate  allegation 
of  a  notorious  falsehood  :  you  have  gone  no  such  length 
as  this,  I  think  you  may  believe  me  sincere,  when  I 
speak  respectfully  of  your  worth  and  integrity;  not- 
withstanding, that  I  find  occasion  to  charge  you  with 
some  degree  of  blame,  in  a  sort,  in  which  the  great 
character  of  Origen  was  more  deeply  infected  :  would 
God  it  had  been  otherwise — would  God  I  could  with 
truth  have  boasted,  "  To  these  low  arts  stooped  Origen  : 


*  Letters  to  Dr  Horslejr,  p.  J 10. 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  XVII. 

but  my  contemporary,  my  great  antagonist,  disdains 
them."  How  would  it  have  heightened  the  pride  of 
victory,  could  I  have  found  a  fair  occasion  to  be  thus 
the  herald  of  my  adversary's  praise  ! 

5.  I  am  not  sensible,  that  I  have  spoken  contemptu- 
ously of  dissenters  in  general ;  a  fair  and  conscientious 
dissent,  is  not  the  object  of  contempt ;  neither  is  a  petu- 
lant hostility  against  establishments  respectable  ;  the 
praise  which  I  give  the  Church  of  England,  that  she  is 
the  first  in  consideration  of  all  the  Protestant  churches, 
is  no  more  than  liberal  dissenters  have  themselves  al- 
lowed :  I  have  heard,  from  very  good  authority,  of  a 
conversation  that  passed  between  the  late  Dr  Chandler, 
and  a  clergyman  of  the  Church  of  Scotland,  in  which 
Chandler  was  a  warm  advocate  for  the  constitution  of 
the  Church  of  England,  in  preference  to  any  of  the  re- 
formed churches :  you  will  remember,  that  I  make  the 
learning  and  the  piety  of  her  clergy,  of  which  ample 
monuments  are  extant,  the  basis  of  her  preeminence ; 
to  which,  however,  another  circumstance  hath  in  soma 
degree  contributed  ;  namely,  that  she  had  the  discretion 
to  observe  some  decency  and  moderation,  in  the  business 
of  reforming.     I  cannot  admit,  that  mere  distance  from 
the  Church  of  Rome,  is  the  true  standard  of  purity  5 
and  when  you  recollect,  how  strongly  that  maxim  sa- 
vours of  Jack's  spleen  against  Lord  Peter,  I  am  apt  to 
think  you  will  regret,  that  such  a  sentiment  should  staia 
your  page.* 

6.  It  is  still  my  opinion,  that  any  young  clergyman, 
who  will  diligently  apply  to  the  course  of  studies,  which 


*  Letters  to  Dr  Horsey,  p.  Itfl. 


LET.  XV1L  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY.  £77 

I  took  the  liberty  to  recommend,  may  do  without  Dr 
Whitby'a  Disquisitions,  or  Dr  Clarke's  Scripture  Doc- 
trine :*  the  last    treatise,  contains  indeed  a  very  full 
collection  of  the  texts  relating  to  the  Trinity — the  compi- 
lation from  the  fathers  is  incomplete  ;  the  learned  author 
having  carefully  selected  those  passages,  which,  taken  by 
themselves  in  detachment  from  their  contexts,  seem  fa* 
vourable  to  his  own  opinions.     I  will  not  however  deny, 
that,  to  students  of  a  certain  description,  the  book  may 
have  its  use  :  I  myself  perhaps  owe  something  to  it ; 
which,  as  you  recommend  it  to  my  particular  attention, 
it  seems  incumbent  upon  me  to  declare :  I  believe,  Sir, 
that  few  have  thought  so  much  upon  these  subjects,  as 
you  and  I  have  done,  who  have  not  at  first  wavered  : 
perhaps,  nothing  but  the  uneasiness  of  doubt,  added  to 
a  just   sense  of  the  importance  of  the  question,  could 
engage  any  man  in  the  toil  of  the  inquiry ;  for  my  own 
part,  I  shall  not  hesitate  to  confess,  that  I  set  out  with 
great  scruples,  but  the  progress  of  my  mind,  hath  been 
the  very  reverse  of  yours.     It  was  at  first  my  principle, 
as  it  is  still  yours,  that  all  appearance  of  difficulty  in 
the  doctrine  of  the  gospel,  must  arise  from  misinterpre- 
tation ;  and  I  was  fond  of  the  expedient  of  getting  rid  of 
mystery,  by  supposing  a  figure  in  the  language :  the 
harshness  of  the  figures,  which  I  had  sometimes  occa- 
sion to  suppose,  and   the  obvious  uncertainty  of  all 
figurative  interpretations,  soon  gave  me  a  distrust  of  this 
method  of  expounding ;  and  Butler's  Analogy,  cured 
me  of  the  folly  of  looking  for  nothing  mysterious,  in  the 
true  sense  of  a  divine  revelation.     By  this  cure,  1  way 


*  Letters  t»  Dr  Horsier,  p,  s. 


LETTERS 

prepared  to  become  an  easy  convert  to  the  doctrine  of 
atonement  and  satisfaction ;  which  seemed  to  furnish 
incentives  to  piety,  that  no  other  doctrine  c<mld  supply : 
1  soon  perceived,  how  the  value  of  the  atonement  was 
heightened,  and  what  a  sublimity  accrued  to  the  whole 
doctrine  of  redemption,  by  the  notion,  clearly  conveyed 
in  the  Scriptures  literally  taken,  of  a  Redeemer  de- 
scending from  a  previous  state  of  glory,  to  become  our 
teacher,  and  to  make  the  expiation.  Thus  I  was  brought, 
to  a  full  persuasion  of  our  Lord's  preexistent  dignity  : 
Having  once-  admitted  his  preexistence  in  an  exalted 
state,  1  saw  the  necessity  of  placing  him  at  the  head  of 
the  creation  :  "  for  a  derived  preexistent  being,  sup- 
posed to  animate  the  body  of  Jesus,  who  is  not  also  the 
maker  of  the  world,  is,  as  you  well  observe,  a  mere 
creature  of  the  imagination,  whose  existence  is  not  to  be 
inferred,,  with  the  least  colourable  pretext  from  the 
Scripture  :*  since  it  is  not  to  be  found,  either  in  the 
literal,  or  in  the  figurative  meaning.  Not  in  the  literal 
confessedly  :  not  in  the  figurative  ;  because,  if  the  texts 
which  speak  of  Christ,  as  the  maker  of  the  world,  ad- 
mit  a  figurative  construction ;  much  more  those  which 
refer  only  to  his  preexistence."f  I  thank  you,  Sir,  for 
expressing  my  own  sentiments  with  so  much  perspicuity, 
and  for  proving  them  with  so  much  evidence  : — being 
thus  convinced,  that  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  is  indeed 
the  Maker  of  all  things ;  I  found,  that  I  could  not  rest 
satisfied  with  the  notion,  of  a  Maker  of  the  universe  not 
1  saw,  that  all  the  extravagancies  of  the 


*  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  p.  84. 
f  Hist,  of  Cornip.  Yol.  i.  p.  liS. 


LET.  XY11.  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 

ticks,  hung  upon  that  one  principle  :  and  1  could  have 
little  opinion  of  the  truth  of  a  principle,  which  seemed 
so  big  with  mischief — I  then  set  myself  to  consider, 
whether  I  knew  enough  of  the  divine  unity,  to  pronounce 
the  "Trinity  an  infringement  of  it :"  upon  this  point, 
the  Platonists,  whose  acquaintance  I  now  began  to  cul- 
tivate, soon  brought  me  to  a  right  mind.  It  was  in  this 
stage  of  my  inquiries,  while  I  was  wavering  between 
the  Arian  tenets  in  their  original  extent,  and  the  true 
faith ;  that  I  first  opened  Dr  Clarke's  Scripture  Doc- 
trine of  the  Trinity:  I  sat  seriously  down  to  the  perusal 
of  the  book — I  rose  a  firm  and  decided  Trinitarian. 
And  why  not  recommend  to  others,  you  will  say,  a  book 
which  had  so  principal  a  share  in  your  own  conversion  ? 
I  will  tell  you.  It  is  one  of  those  books,  which  may 
either  instruct  or  mislead,  according  to  the  previous 
attainments  and  habits  of  the  student :  I  was  much  at 
home  in  the  Greek  language ;  I  had  read  the  ecclesi- 
astical historians ;  and  T  had  been  many  years  in  the 
habit  of  thinking  for  myself,  upon  a  variety  of  subjects, 
before  I  opened  Dr  Clarke's  book.  There  is  in  most 
men,  a  culpable  timidity ;  you  and  I,  perhaps,  have 
overcome  that  general  infirmity ;  but  there  is  in  most 
men  a  culpable  timidity,  which  inclines  them  to  be 
easily  overawed  by  the  authority  of  great  names :  and, 
much  as  we  talk  of  the  freedom  and  liberality  of  think- 
ing and  inquiry,  it  is  this  slavish  principle,  not,  as  is  pre- 
tended, any  freedom  of  original  thought,  which  makes 
converts  to  infidelity  and  heresy.  Fools  imagine,  that  the 
greatest  authorities,  are  always  on  the  side  of  new  and 
singular  opinions  ;  and  that,  by  adopting  them,  they  get 
themselves  into  better  company,  than  they  have  n«iturally 
any  right  io  keep :  and  thus,  they  are  secretly  worshippers 


280  USTTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  XV1L 

of  authority,  in  that  very  act,  in  which  they  pretend  to 
fly  in  the  face  of  it — they  worship  private  authority, 
while  they  fly  in  the  face  of  universal :  they  deride  au 
old  and  general  tradition,  hecause  they  have  not  sa- 
gacity to  trace  the  connexion  of  its  parts,  and  to  perceive 
the  force  of  the  entire  evidence :  and  while  they  thus 
trample  on  the  accumulated  authority  of  ages  ;  with  an 
idiot  simplicity,  they  suffer  themselves  to  he  led,  by  the 
mere  name  of  the  writer  of  the  day,— a  Bolingbroke,  a 
Voltaire,  a  Gibbon,  or  a  Priestley ;  as  if  they  thought  to 
become  wise  and  learned,  by  taking  a  share  and  an 
interest  in  the  follies,  or  the  party-views,  of  men  of 
abilities  and  learning :  and,  where  a  secret  conscious* 
ness  of  ignorance,  is  not  accompanied  with  the  vain  am- 
bition of  being  thought  wise  ;  still,  an  undue  deference 
to  private  authority,  in  prejudice  of  established  opinion, 
seems  to  be  the  side  upon  which,  even  modest  men,  are 
liable  to  err  :  insomuch,  that  every  man  may  be  suppo- 
sed to  partake  of  this  infirmity,  in  subjects  in  which 
he  feels  himself  unlearned.  To  those,  therefore,  who 
are  qualified  to  use  Dr  Clarke's  book  as  a  digest,  which, 
though  incomplete,  may  assist  them  in  forming  a  judg- 
ment for  themselves  ;  to  those  who  can  and  will  turn  it 
to  this  use,  it  may  be  serviceable :  but  they  who,  from  a 
modest  sense  of  their  own  insufficiency  in  the  learned 
languages,  and  in  ecclesiastical  history,  may  be  dispo- 
sed to  listen  to  the  opinion  of  the  writer  ;  will  be  more 
misled  by  his  authority,  than  they  will  be  informed  by 
the  compilation.  In  a  word,  it  is  a  book  of  which  a 
scholar  may  make  his  use  ;  but  I  cannot  recommend  it 
to  young  divines,  in  the  beginning  of  their  studies. 

7«  In  the  conclusion  of  your  seventh  letter,  you  speak 
of  a  certain  defence  of  Bishop  BulFs,  of  the  damna- 


LET.  JT/7.  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 

tory  clause  in  the  Athanasian  creed ;  of  which,  inasmuch 
as  I  have  recommended  the  writings  of  Bishop  Bull, 
without  exception,  you  "  presume,  you  tell  me,  that  I 
approve  :"  and,  to  correct  these  expressions,  which  state 
as  a  presumption  only,  or  an  inference,  what  might  be 
directly  proved  upon  me  by  my  own  words,  you  add  in 
a  parenthesis,  that  I  have  mentioned  this,  among  tha 
most  valuable  works  of  that  learned  prelate.*  Of  what- 
ever importance,  Sir,  I  may  conceive  it  to  be,  that  the 
faith  which  was  first  delivered  to  the  saints,  should  be 
preserved  whole  and  undefiled  ;  whatever  I  may  think 
of  the  folly  and  the  crime,  of  setting  up  private  judg- 
ment for  the  rule  of  publick  opinion,  in  opposition  to  a 
tradition  traced  to  the  first  ages  ;  and  by  consequence, 
of  the  same  authority  with  that,  on  which  the  credit  of 
the  canon  rests  ;  1  am  no  lover  of  damnatory  clauses  :  I 
am  an  enemy  to  any  application  of  damnatory  clauses  to 
particular  persons :  I  am  hopeful,  that  there  is  more 
folly  in  the  world  than  malignity  ;  more  ignorance  than 
positive  infidelity ;  more  error  than  heretical  perverse* 
ness.  How  is  it  then,  that  I  recommend  a  defence  of 
the  damnatory  clause,  among  the  most  valuable  of  a 
learned  Bishop's  works  ?  Sir,  did  you  write  this  in  your 
sleep  ?  Or  is  it  in  a  dream  only  that  I  seem  to  read  it ; 
Bishop  Bull's  defence  of  the  damnatory  clause !  From 
you,  Sir,  I  have  now  my  first  information,  that  Bishop 
Bull  ever  wrote  upon  the  subject — the  writings  of  Bi- 
shop Bull,  which  I  have  particularly  recommended,  are 
these  three  Latin  treatises  :  Defensio  Jidei  Nicenw :  Ju~ 
dicium  Ecclesice  Catholicce  de  necessitate  credendi  Je- 


*  Letters  to  Dr  Honley,  p.  100, 

36 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  XTII. 

sum  Christum  esse  verum  Deum :  Primitiva  et  Apos- 
tolica  traditio  de  Jesu  Christi  divinitate.  To  which  I 
might  have  added  a  fourth,  of  less  importance,  Jlnimad- 
versiones  in  brevem  tractatum  Gul.  Clerke,  &o.  These 
are  all  his  writings  upon  the  Trinitarian  controversy, 
which  are  contained  in  the  edition  of  his  Latin  works, 
by  Grabe  :  in  these  treatises,  there  is  no  defence  of  the 
damnatory  clause  ;  nor,  that  I  recollect,  any  mention  of 
the  Athanasian  creed  :  there  is  no  defence  of  the  damna- 
tory clause,  in  the  sermons  and  English  tracts  published 
by  Mr  Nelson :  nor,  can  I  find  any  such  tract  mentioned 
by  Mr  Nelson,  among  the  Bishop's  lost  works ;  for 
many  small  pieces,  which  it  was  known  that  he  had 
written,  were  never  found  after  his  death.  Where  have 
I  mentioned,  Sir,  with  such  high  approbation,  a  work 
which  I  declare  I  have  never  seen ;  and  of  which,  you 
will  forgive  me,  if  I  still  doubt  the  existence  ?* 


*  Dr  Priestley  is  reduced  to  the  necessity  of  confessing,  in  the  sixteenth  of  his 
Second  Letters,  that  he  knows  no  more  than  I,  in  what  library  any  work  of  Bishop 
Bull's,  upon  the  damnatory  clause  in  the  Athanasian  creed,  is  to  be  found ;  and 
yet,  he  aftects  to  be  indignant,  that  I  should  presume  to  resent  a  false  accusation ; 
a  calumny,  founded  on  my  pretended  admiration  of  a  work  that  never  existed- 
It  seems,  when  he  spoke  of  this  defence,  he  had  in  his  mind  the  Judiciwn  Eccle- 
*i<e  Catholic*,  but,  "not  looking  into  the  title-page  of  the  book,"  lie  described  it 
by  a  wrong  name :  but  unfortunately,  his  description  is  not  more  erroneous  in  the 
name,  than  in  the  subject:  the  occasion  and  manner  of  his  error,  may  easily  be 
divined :  having  no  acquaintance  with  Bishop  Bull's  writings,  but  what  his  contro- 
versy with  me  hath  occasioned,  when  he  wrote  his  First  Letters;  he  made  a  guess 
about  the  particular  subject  of  each  work,  from  the  titles  enumerated  by  me : 
among  these,  he  found  the  "  Judicium  Eccksice  Catholic*?  &c.  He  guessed  that 
this  judgment  of  the  Catholick  church,  which  Bishop  Bull  defended,  was  a  judg- 
ment founded  on  the  damnatory  clause  in  the  Athanasian  creed  :  so  he  guessed, 
that  Bishop  Bull,  defending  that  judgment,  must  have  defended  the  damnatory 
clause :  and  he  chose  to  guess  further,  that  I,  the  professed  admirer  of  Bishop  Bull, 
Of  all  parts  of  his  writings,  the  most  admired  that  defence. 

Dr  Priestley  hath  tiuce,  indeed,  looked  further  into  thja  matter :  and,  at  the 


LET.  XVII  TO  DR.  PRIESTLEY. 

8.  Had  I  been  aware  of  the  offence  which  I  find  the 
word  conventicle  hath  given,  I  would  have  avoided  the 
use  of  it :  we  are  engaged  in  a  subject,  in  which  I  hold 
it  my  duty  to  display  my  argument  in  its  utmost  force ; 
and  even  to  use  pretty  freely  that  high  seasoning  of  con- 
troversy, which  may  interest  the  reader's  attention  ;  but 
I  would  not  wilfully  give  offence  by  harsh  words,  from 
which  the  reasoning  may  acquire  neither  force  nor  lustre. 
You  say,  that  the  word  conventicle  usually  signifies,  an 


time  when  he  drew  up  his  Second  Letters,  he  had  discovered,  that  the  judgment  of 
the  church,  defended  by  Bishop  Bull,  is  the  anathema  of  the  Nicene  council, 
against  those,  wh»  should  in  any  way  impugn  the  article  of  our  Lord's  divinity  ; 
this,  Bishop  Bull  indeed  defends  ;  thut  is,  he  maintains  the  historical  fact,  that  the 
fathers  of  the  Nicene  council  enforced  the  belief  of  that  article,  under  the  solemn 
•auction  of  a  publick  sentence ;  which  fact  Episcopius  had  denied. 

J)r  Priestley,  being  now  informed  of  the  real  subject  of  Bishop  Bull's  treatise* 
says,  "  that  the  damnatory  clause  in  the  Athanasian  creed,  and  the  anathema  annex- 
ed to  the  Nicene,  are  things  exactly  of  the  same  nature."  Were  I  te  undertake 
the  defence  of  the  damnatory  clause  in  the  Athanasian  creed,  it  should  indeed  be 
upon  this  principle, — that  it  is  a  thing  somewhat  of  the  same  nature  with  the 
anathema  annexed  to  the  Nicene :  the  anathema,  is  no  part  of  the  Nicene  creed ; 
it  is  only  a  sentence  of  the  church,  against  the  impugner»  of  a  particular  article  t 
what  is  called  the  damnatory  clause,  is  no  part  of  the  Athanasiau  :  it  is  a  clause,  not 
of  the  creed,  hut  of  a  prefatory  sentence,  in  which  the  author  declares  his  opinion 
of  the  importance  of  the  rule  of  faith  he  is  about  to  deliver.  But  in  whatever 
degree,  the  damnatory  clause  may  he  capable,  or  incapable,  of  apology,  Dr  Priestley 
is,  I  believe,  the  only  writer,  who  ever  confounded  two  things  so  totally  distinct, 
is  an  anathema,  and  an  article  of  faith;  which  he  conceives  the  damnatory  clause 
to  be.  An  anathema,  is  simply  a  sentence  of  excommunication  :  the  church  of 
England  anathematizes  those,  who  speak  disrespectfully  of  her  Book  of  Common 
Prayer,  (see  the  IV th  Canon)  :  but,  that  every  person,  who  shall  incur  the  anathe- 
ma of  the  IV th  Canon,  shall  perish  everlastingly,  is  no  clause  of  the  church  of 
England's  creed. 

Dr  Priestley  hath  lengthened  his  sixteenth  letter,  with  a  recital  of  several  pas- 
sages from  Bishop  Bull's  works,  which,  he  thinks,  must  compel  me  to  acknowledge, 
that,  whatever  I  may  be,  Bishop  Bull  at  least  was  a  friend  to  damnatory  clauses  : 
the  sentiments  expressed  by  Bishop  Bull,  in  the  passages  produced  by  Dr  Priestley, 
I  would  be  understood  to  cherish  and  embrace,  with  the  most  entire  unqualified 
approbation.  If  to  cherish  such  sentiments,  and  to  be  a  friend  to  damnatory  clauses, 
t»«  the  sa»e  thing,  I  stand  convicted.  Hab<A  conjitentem  reitm. 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  XVlt. 

Unlawful  assembly  :  for  my  own  part,  I  thought  it  bare- 
ly equivalent  to  the  old  Greek  word  <ruyifxv<r;c,  which  was 
the  name  for  certain  irregular  assemblies,  not  as  illegal ; 
for  the  word  was  brought  into  use,  in  an  age,  when  all 
assemblies  of  Christians  were,  in  the  civil  sense,  equal- 
ly illegal ;  but  it  was  the  name  for  assemblies,  meeting 
for  the  purpose  of  religious  worship,  without  authority 
from  the  bishop :  such  assemblies,  in  the  primitive  ages, 
were  thought  to  be  spiritually  unauthorized  ;  and  in  this 
sense,  the  word  conventicle  is  applicable  at  this  day  to 
many  religious  meetings,  which  are  not  liable  to  any 
legal  penalties.  I  could  have  wished,  that  the  use  of  it 
had  been  considered  as  one  of  the  mere  archaisms  of 
my  style,  in  which  nothing  of  insult  was  intended;  I 
must  however  declare,  that  it  would  give  me  particular 
pleasure  to  receive  conviction,  that  Mr  Lindsey's  meet- 
ing -house,  and  your  own,  are  not  more  emphatically 
conventicles,  in  your  sense ;  that  is,  in  the  worst  sense 
of  the  word.  From  personal  respect  for  you  and  him, 
I  should  be  happy  to  be  assured,  that  you  stand  not 
tvithin  the  danger  of  the  35th  of  Eliz.  c.  i ;  or  the  17th 
C.  ii.  c.  2.  to  the  penalties  of  which,  and  of  other  sta- 
tutes, I  must  take  the  liberty  to  tell  you,  you  are  obnox- 
ious, notwithstanding  the  late  act  of  the  19th  of  His 
present  Majesty,  in  favour  of  dissenters,  unless  at  the 
quarter. sessions  of  the  peace  for  the  county  where  you 
live,  you  have  made  a  certain  declaration,*  which  is 
required  by  that  act,  instead  of  the  subscription  to  ar- 
ticles required  by  the  former  acts  of  toleration.  I  am 
sorry,  Sir,  to  inform  you,  that  I  find  no  entry  of  Mr 


Appendix,  No.  TI. 


LET.  XVll  TO  BR  PRIESTLEY. 

Lindsey's  declaration,  in  the  office  of  the  clerk  of  the 
peace,  either  for  the  county  of  Middlesex,  or  the  city  of 
Westminster :  could  I  make  the  same  inquiry  concern- 
ing you,  (which  the  distance  of  your  residence  pre- 
vents,) I  fear  I  should  have  the  mortification  to  find, 
that  you  have,  no  more  than  your  friend,  complied  with 
the  laws,  from  which  you  claim  protection.  A  report 
prevails,  that  you  both  object  to  the  declaration,  from 
conscientious  scruples  :  a  very  sufficient  excuse  for  not 
making  it ;  but  no  excuse  at  all,  for  doing  what  the  law 
allows  not  to  be  done,  except  upon  the  express  condi- 
tion, that  the  declaration  be  previously  made.  Had  you 
made  the  declaration,  you  might  indeed  be  entitled  to 
the  same  indulgence,  by  virtue  of  the  late  act,  to  which 
you  would  have  been  entitled,  by  a  subscription  to  cer- 
tain articles,  under  former  acts  of  toleration ;  but  not 
without  the  performance  of  certain  other  conditions,  re- 
quired by  the  1st  of  William  and  Mary,  c.  18,  from 
which  other  conditions,  dissenters  are  not  released  by 
any  subsequent  statutes  :  for  the  single  operation  of  the 
19th  of  our  present  gracious  Sovereign,  c.  44,  is  to  sub- 
stitute a  short  and  general  declaration,  instead  of  a  more 
particular  subscription :  all  other  limitations  of  the  in- 
dulgences granted  by  the  first  of  William  and  Mary, 
stand  as  they  were.  Had  you  therefore  made  the  de- 
claration, which  the  law  demands,  still  to  entitle  your 
meetings  to  the  benefit  of  the  toleration,  it  would  have 
been  necessary  that  the  places  of  them  should  be  certifi- 
ed, (according  to  the  last  clause  of  1st  of  William  and 
Mary,  c.  18,)  either  to  the  bishop  of  the  diocese,  or  to 
ihe  archdeacon  of  the  archdeaconry,  or  to  the  justices  of 
the  peace  at  the  general  or  quarter- sessions  of  the  peace 
for  the  county,  city,  or  place  where  such  meeting  inaj 


LETTERS  IN  REPLY  tW.  XT'//. 


be  held.*—  —I  have  searched  the  registers  of  the  epis- 
copal court  of  London,  of  the  archdeacon's  court  of  Mid- 
dlesex,  and  the  records  of  the  sessions  for  the  county  of 
Middlesex,  and  for  the  city  of  Westminster,  for  an 
entry  of  the  house  in  Essex-street,  without  success  :f 
about  your  meeting-house  I  am  precluded,  as  before, 
from  making  a  regular  inquiry  ;  but  I  fear  you  have  not 
taken  the  proper  measures  for  your  legal  security  ;  be- 
cause the  professed  ground  of  your  dissent  from  the 
church  of  England,  is  not  a  mere  disagreement  about 
particular  articles,  but  a  general  denial  of  the  magis- 
trate's authority,  either  to  prohibit  or  to  tolerate  ;J  still, 
Sir,  were  you  ready  to  comply  with  the  requisitions  of 
the  law  in  these  two  particulars,  the  declaration  of  your 
own  belief  in  the  holy  Scriptures,  and  the  notification  of 
the  place  of  meeting,  to  the  ecclesiastical  or  the  secular 
magistrate,  Mr  Lindsey  and  you,  by  the  doctrines  which 
you  publickly  maintain,!]  are  excluded  from  all  benefits  of 
the  acts  of  toleration  :  your  meeting-house  and  his,  contra- 
ry to  your  imagination,  are  illegal;  UNKNOWN  to  the  laws, 
and  UNPROTECTED  by  them.  If  this  be  the  definition  of  a 
conventicle,  they  are  CONVENTICLES  by  the  express  letter 
of  the  law,  and  in  your  own  construction  of  the  word  :  still, 
Sir,  I  had  no  thought  to  insult  over  your  miserable  un- 
protected state  :  the  extravagant  outcry  which  you  have 
made,  and  the  arrogance  with  which  you  presume,  to  set 


*  Appendix,  No.  V. 

f  See  the  seventeenth  of  Dr  Priestley's  Second  Letters,  and  my  Remaika  upon 
the  Second  Letters,  Part  II.  cap.  iv.  sec.  6. 

$  "  Exclusive  of  every  thing  contained  in  the  religion  of  the  churoh  of  England> 
it  is  chiefly  the  authority  by  which  it  is  enjoined,  that  dissenter*  object  to  in  it" 
Hist,  of  (Jorrup.  vol.  ii.  p.  357. 

|  Appendix,  No.  IV. 


LET.  XYU,  TO  DR  PRIESTLEY. 

your  conventicles  upon  a  footing  with  our  own  churches,* 
have  provoked  me  to  salute  you  with  these  unwelcome 
truths.  Respect  for  individuals,  in  Mr  Lindsey's  con- 
gregation and  in  yours,  as  well  as  for  you  and  him, 
would  have  restrained  me  from  the  use  of  a  word  which 
I  had  perceived  to  be  any  otherwise  reproachful,  than 
as  it  might  contain  a  strong  disapprobation  and  censure 
of  your  doctrine,  and  a  serious  disavowal  of  your  au- 
thority to  exercise  the  sacred  function  ;  if  this  is  to  be 
deemed  reproach,  I  am  not  at  liberty  to  abstain  from  it : 
your  doctrine  1  must  disapprove  and  censure  ;  because  I 
conceive  it  to  be  a  gross,  I  trust  not  a  wilful,  corruption 
of  the  word  of  God.  If  your  authority, — 1  speak  not 
now  of  the  authority  which  derives  from  human  laws ; 
but  even  in  that  you  are  deficient ;  for  a  mere  exemption 
from  civil  penalties,  which  still  is  more  than  you  enjoy, 
differs  from  authority,  just  as  the  king's  pardon  differs 
from  his  favour  :  if  your  spiritual  authority,  as  ministers 
of  the  word  and  sacraments,  is  wrongfully  called  in 
question,  you  must  bear  with  the  prejudices  of  a  church- 
man, who,  when  he  reviews  the  practice  of  the  primitive 
ages ;  when  he  ponders  our  Saviour's  parting  promise, 
to  be  always  present  with  the  apostles,  the  delegated 
preachers  of  the  gospel,  even  to  the  end  of  the  world  ; 
when  he  connects  it  with  the  history  of  the  first  ordina- 
tions, and  with  the  great  stress  laid  upon  the  Bishop's 
authority,  by  Clemens,  the  fellow  labourer  of  St  Paul ; 
by  Ignatius,  the  disciple  of  St  John  ;  and  by  the  whole 
church  for  many  ages  ;  allows  himself  to  be  easily  per- 


*  '*     '  •       our  places  of  worship  are  as  legal  as  yours— equally  knovn  ti  the 
Uwn,  and  protected  by  them."    Letters  to  Or  Horsier,  p.  \\2. 


288  LETTERS  IN  REPLY  LET.  XVlt 

suaded,  that  the  authority  of  the  commission,  under 
"which  he  acts,  is  something  more  than  mere  human  le- 
gislation can  convey  ;  and,  while  he  would  abhor  to  en- 
force civil  penalties,  may  think  it  his  duty  occasionally 
to  protest  against  a  spiritual  usurpation.  Indeed,  Sir, 
when  I  revolve  in  my  thoughts,  the  various  disorders 
and  distractions,  which  I  have  seen  in  my  own  country, 
within  the  compass  of  my  own  life,  arising  from  the  ir- 
regular zeal  of  self-constituted  teachers  of  religion ;  when 
I  reflect,  how  the  unity  of  the  church  hath  been  torn, 
how  tender  consciences  are  every  day  disturbed  with 
groundless  scruples,  and  melancholy  tempers  driven  to 
insanity ;  how  the  simplicity  of  the  vulgar  hath  been 
first  abused,  and  their  principles  in  the  end  unsettled ; 
when  I  recollect,  how  eminently  the  state  hath  been 
lately  endangered,  and  the  Protestant  cause  disgraced, 
by  a  combination  of  wild  fanaticks,  pretending  to  asso- 
ciate for  the  preservation  of  the  reformed  religion  ;  whea 
1  consider,  how  by  these  scandals,  the  true  religion  hath 
itself  been  brought  into  discredit ;  how  it  hath  been  in- 
jured, by  attempts  to  inflame  devotion  on  the  one  hand, 
and  by  theories,  fabricated  to  reduce  the  mystery  of  its 
doctrines  on  the  other ;  when  I  consider,  that  the  root  of 
all  these  evils  hath  been,  the  prevalency  of  a  principle, 
of  which  you  seem  disposed  to  be  an  advocate ;  that 
every  man  who  hath  credit  enough  to  collect  a  congre- 
gation, hath  a  right,  over  which  the  magistrate  cannot, 
without  tyranny,  exercise  control,  to  celebrate  divine 
worship  according  to  his  own  form,  and  to  propagate 
bis  own  opinions  ;  1  am  inclined  to  be  jealous  of  a  prin- 
pie,  which  hath  proved,  I  had  almost  said,  so  ruinous ; 
and  I  lean  the  more  to  the  opinion,  that  the  commission 
of  a  ministry,  perpetuated  by  regular  succession,  i* 


LET.  XV1L  TO  Dtt  PRIESTLEY. 

something  more  than  a  dream  of  cloistered  gownmen,  or 
a  tale  imposed  upon  the  vulgar,  to  serve  the  ends  of 
avarice  and  ambition.  For  whatever  confusion  bumaa 
folly  may  admit,  a  divine  institution  must  have  within 
itself  a  provision  for  harmony  and  order ;  and,  upon 
these  principles,  though  I  wish  that  all  indulgence 
should  be  shown  to  tender  consciences,  and  will  ever  be 
an  advocate  for  the  largest  toleration  that  may  be  con- 
sistent with  political  wisdom,  being  indeed  persuaded, 
that  the  restraints  of  human  laws  must  be  used  with  the 
greatest  gentleness  and  moderation,  to  be  rendered 
means  of  strengthening  the  bands  of  Christian  peace 
And  amity ;  yet  I  could  wish  to  plant  a  principle  of  se- 
vere restraint,  in  the  consciences  of  men  :  I  could  wish, 
that  the  importance  of  the  ministerial  office  were  consid- 
ered ;  that  the  practice  of  antiquity  were  regarded ;  and 
that  it  might  not  seem  a  matter  of  perfect  indifference 
to  the  laity,  to  what  house  of  worship  they  resort.  I 
cannot  admit,  that  every  assemby  of  grave  and  virtuous 
men,  in  which  grave  and  virtuous  men  take  upon  them 
to  officiate,  is  to  be  dignified  with  the  appellation  of  a 
church ;  and  for  such  irregular  assemblies,  which  are 
not  churches,  I  could  wish  to  find  a  name  of  distinc- 
tion void  of  opprobrium.  As  such,  I  used  the  word 
conventicle,  as  expressing  great  irregularity,  (which 
1  must  express,  wo !  is  me  if  I  express  it  not,)  bub 
no  infamy  of  the  assemblies  to  which  I  applied  it. 
If  you  are  still  disposed  to  be  indignant  about  this 
harmless  word,  recollect  I  beseech  you,  with  what  re- 
spect you  have  yourself  treated  the  venerable  body  to 
which  I  belong, — the  clergy  of  the  establishment — you 
divide  it  into  two  classes  only  :  the  ignorant,  and  the 

37 


ggg  LETTERS  IN  REPL\  LET.  XVII. 

insincere.*    Have  I  no  share  in  this  opprobrium  of  my 
order  ?  Have  I  no  right  to  be  indignant  in  my  turn  ? 

9.  Still  looking  forward  to  the  time,  when  after  all 
that  is  past,  we  shall  mutually  forgive,  and  be  ourselves 
forgiven,  I  remain, 

DEAR  SIR, 
Your  very  humble  Servant,  &c. 

Fulham  Palactt 
June  \5tht  ir84. 


*  Dr  Priestley,  in  his  History  of  Corruptions,  vol.  i.  p.  147,  says  of  the  Trinita- 
rians of  the  present  age,  under  which  denomination  it  is  evident  he  alludes  to  the 
clergy  of  the  established  ehurcb,  for  he  afterwards  describes  these  Trinitarians,  as 
persons  "  to  all  of  whom  the  emoluments  of  the  establishment  are  equally  accessi- 
ble ;"  he  says  of  these  persons,  that  "  they  are  all  reducible  to  two  classes,  viz. 
that  of  those,  who,  if  they  were  ingenuous,  would  rank  with  Socinians,  believing 
that  there  is  no  proper  divinity  in  Christ  besides  that  of  the  Father ;  or  else  with 
Tritheists,  holding  three  equal  and  distinct  God's."  The  first  class,  surely  muit 
be  insincere,  as  not  believing  what  they  profess ;  the  second  ignorant,  as  not  per- 
ceiving what  it  is  that  they  believe.  In  the  conclusion  of  his  History,  vol.  ii.  p.  471, 
he  says,  that  all  that  is  urged  in  defence  of  the  present  system,  by  men  of  the 
greatest  eminence  in  the  church,  who  have  appeared  as  its  advocates,  "  is  so  palpa- 
bly weak,  that  it  is  barely  possible  they  should  be  in  earnest — in  thinking  their 
arguments  have  that  weight  in  themselves,  which  they  wish  them  to  have  with 
others :"  and  he  speaks  of  this  insincerity  of  the  defenders  of  the  establishment, 
as  a  thing  so  notorious,  that  it  maybe  reckoned  "one  of  the  worst  symptoms  of 
the  present  times."  After  all  this,  in  his  appendix  to  his  Second  Letters,  he  denies 
that  he  ever  intended  to  make  that  division  of  the  whole  body  of  the  established 
clergy,  which  I  ascribe  to  him,  into  the  two  classes  of  the  ignorant  and  the  insin- 
cere: he  treats  the  charge  as  a  calumny,  from  which  he  justifies  himself,  by 
producing  a  long  passage  from  one  of  his  sermons,  in  which  he  professea  to  ho!8 
the  churoh  of  Eoglajad  io  ao  less  estimation  than  the  church  of  Rome. 


APPENDIX. 


No.  I. 

Gentleman's  Magazine,  for  October,  1783,  p.  842. 

»U7?  URBAN, 

I  WAS  formerly  a  pupil  of  Dr  Harwood,  and  read 
with  my  learned  and  worthy  master,  Thucydides, 
Sophocles,  and  the  life  of  Moses,  in  a  magnificent 
edition  of  Philo,  printed  by  the  learned  Mr  Bowyer ; 
and  wonder  that  Dr  Horsley  should  assert,  as  he  is 
represented  to  do  by  the  learned  and  ingenious  Mr 
Maty,  in  his  New  Review,  that  Jroc  is  spoken  of 
persons  only ;  when  it  is  applied  to  any  thing  of  which 
the  writer  is  speaking,  that  happens  to  be  of  the  mas- 
culine gender.  For  instance,  it  is  predicated  of  bread 
turice  in  John  vi.  50,  58,  vroe  en  o  «/>7»c,  and  of  a  stone, 
Luke  xx.  17*  the  same  ;  viz.  stone,  wroc  is  become  head 
of  the  corner.  Controversialists  are  apt  to  overshoot 
the  mark, 

GRJECULUS. 


APPENDIX. 


No.  II. 

Gentleman'*  Magazine,  for  November,  1J  '83,  p.  944. 

MR  URBJUf, 

BE  pleased,  Sir,  to  inform  your  correspondent,  Grce- 
culus, that  Dr  Horsley  has  not  asserted  of  the  Greek 
pronoun  *rot,  that  it  is  spoken  of  persons  only.  He 
renders  it  indeed,  in  the  second  verse  of  the  first  chapter 
of  St  John's  gospel,  by  the  \  <>rds  "  This  Person,"  and 
he  says,  in  a  parenthesis,  that  <l  this  is  its  natural 
force  :"  and  this,  Sir,  may  be,  although  by  the  usage  of 
the  Greek  writers,  it  is  applicable,  as  Grceculus  with 
great  truth  remarks,  to  any  thing  of  which  the  writer  is 
gpeakiug,  that  happens  to  be  of  the  masculine  gender  ; 
for  few  words,  in  any  language,  are  confined  to  their 
natural  and  primary  meaning.  But,  since  the  applica- 
tion of  the  word  is  confessedly  so  general  in  the  best 
Writers,  Grceculus  will  perhaps  be  apt  to  put  the  ques- 
tion, how  should  Dr  Horsley  know,  that  "  This  Per- 
son," is  more  the  natural  sense  of  *roc,  than  "  This 
Loaf,"  or  this  any  thing  ?  Perhaps  Dr  Horsley  has  ob- 
served, that  it  is  peculiar  to  the  two  pronouns  wVoc,  and 
aVta,  to  be  used  of  any  one  of  the  three  persons;  which 
is  one  argument,  that  their  proper  sense  is  personal. 
Perhaps  Dr  Horsley  has  observed,  that  the  pronoun 
vTOf  ,  when  it  is  demonstrative  of  any  thing  which  has  no 
person,  and  which  the  writer  would  not  personify,  is 
often  put  in  the  neuter  gender,  although  the  noun,  which 
it  represents,  be  masculine  -  tTrulotv  S«  rcti/l*  xtW?e  ••»• 
after  you  have  abrogated  these  LAWS  -  ro^v?  .  Demosth. 
Olynth.  iii.  —  rv/Ie  en  TO  fftop*  p.v.  this  p.  e.  this  bread, 


293 

fcpta]  is  my  body.  Matt.  xxvi.  6.  This  is  another  ar- 
gument, that  *V*c  is  naturally  demonstrative  of  a  person  : 
for  there  are  but  three  causes,  to  which  the  various  ano- 
malies of  speech  may  be  referred ;  ignorance,  negli- 
gence, design.  Those,  which  are  frequent  in  the  best 
writers,  can  be  ascribed  to  neither  of  the  two  first 
causes  ;  they  must  have  arisen  therefore  from  the  third: 
but  the  third,  design,  implies  an  end  :  and  what  should 
be  the  end  of  this  anomaly  of  gender,  in  the  word  VTOC, 
but  that  it  was  the  means  of  avoiding  an  appearance  of 
a  prosopopoeia,  where  no  prosopopoeia  was  intended. 

2.  Perhaps  Grceculus,  though  perfectly  right  in  his 
remark,  that  vr«c  may  be  demonstrative  of  any  thing  of 
which  the  Greek  name  is  masculine,  has  been  unfortu- 
nate in  his  selection  of  passages  in  proof  of  it.  Perhaps 
of  the  three,  which  he  has  produced,  two  are  nothing  to 
his  purpose.  Perhaps  *TK  «™  •  «/>1»c,  &c.  in  both  the 
texts  in  Bt  John,  should  be  rendered  "  This  person  is 
the  bread,  §*c."  i.  e.  I  am  the  bread,  &c.  It  may  be 
supposed  that  our  Lord  pointed  to  himself,  when  he 
said  this ;  as  the  Baptist  points  to  himself,  when  he 
says,  'oujcc  y*f  er/r  o  'f  *Swf ,  &c.  **  For  this  person  is  the 
person  spoken  of,  &c."  i.  e.  For  1  am  the  person 
spoken  of,  &c.  Matt.  iii.  3.  For  that  these  are  the 
Baptist's,  not  the  historian's  words,  is  evident  from  the 
form,  in  which  the  following  sentence  is  begun.  Avfa 
It  o  luamrc.  "  Now  this  same  John,  &c."  a  form  which 
marks  the  writer's  resumption  of  his  narrative,  inter- 
rupted by  the  insertion  of  John's  words. 

3.  Perhaps  Dr  Horsley  had  not  erred,  had  he  affirm. 
ed,  that,  in  John  i.  2.  *™c  must  necessarily  be  render- 
ed by  "  This  Person."  The  utmost  liberty  of  choice, 
which  the  context  leaves,  is  between  two  expositions 


APPENDIX 

only :  «  This  Person,"  or  "  This  Word."  If  the  latter 
be  adopted,  the  second  verse  will  be  only  a  useless 
repetion  of  what  had  been  before  affirmed ;  whereas,  in 
Dr  Rorsley's  view  of  it,  it  contains  an  explicit  assertion 
of  the  personality  of  the  Logos,  which,  with  great  pro- 
priety  and  significance,  precedes  the  mention  of  his 
agency  in  the  next  verse. 

4.  Perhaps,  to  have  read  some  two  or  three  difficult 
authors  with  a  master,  may  have  made  Grceculus  al- 
most a  match  for  the  brightest  boys  in  the  upper  forms 
of  our  publick  schools.  Perhaps  something  more  should 
be  done  in  the  study  of  the  Greek  language,  before  a 
man  begins  to  play  the  critick  in  it.  'H  y*f  ruv 
«r/  Triipoit  TtA£t/?«ior  tTriyiwnua. 

I  am,  Sir, 

Your  most  obedient, 

PERHAPS* 


No.  III. 

Short  strictures  on  Dr  Priestley's  Letters  to  Dr  Hors- 
ley,  by  an  unknown  hand. 

LETTERS  to  Dr  Horsley,  page  9.  Jesus  Christ  is 
come  in  the  flesh.  Dr  Priestley  should  produce  an  in- 
stance,  where  the  whole  phrase  of  coming  in  the  flesh, 
is  applied  to  the  birth  or  appearances  of  any  mere  man. 
The  instances  alledged  by  him,  prove  nothing  to  his 
purpose. 

Page  13.  The  epistles  of  Ignatius.  Dr  Priestley 
is  certainly  in  the  right  to  reprobate  these  epistles, 
if  he  can;  they  subvert  all  his  theology  and  his^ 


APPBNDIX. 

tory  :*  but,  who  are  these  learned  in  general,  that  have 
given  them  up  as  spurious  ?  There  are  the  names  of 
great  criticks  on  the  other  side,  of  whose  arguments 
Archbishop  Wake  has  given  a  judicious  summary,  in 
his  preliminary  discourse  :  and  till  they  are  refuted, 
Dr  Horsley  has  an  undoubted  right  to  appeal  to  these 
epistles,  as  containing  the  sentiments  of  an  apostolical 
father. 

Page  14.  If  Dr  Priestley  could  prove,  that  the  Na- 
Tarenes  held  the  same  doctrines  with  the  Ebionites, 
what  would  it  avail  his  cause  ?  Could  he  prove  by  this 
medium,  that  the  Nazarenes  continued  in  the  doctrine 
of  the  apostles,  and  that  the  reputed  Catholick  church 
fell  off  from  it  ?  Did  the  Ebionites  learn  from  the  apos- 
tles, that  John  the  Baptist  came  preaching  in  the  days  of 
Herod  the  king  of  Judea ;  that  Christ  descended  into 
Jesus,  in  the  form  of  a  dove,  at  his  baptism ;  cum  mult  is 
vliis  ?  See  Epiphan.  Hseres.  xxx.  sec.  14. 

24.  Here,  and  throughout,  Dr  Priestley  supposes  the 
Unitarian  doctrine,  to  have  had  a  general  prevalence 
among  the  Gentile  Christians,  and  universal  among  the 
Jewish.  Does  this  well  agree,  with  respect  to  the  Gen- 
tiles, with  his  quotation  from  Origen,  at  the  bottom  of 
page  20  ? 

The  much  controverted  passage  of  Justin  Martyr,  in 
his  Dialogue  with  Trypho,f  and  the  meaning  of  'H/XIT^  ou 
yivovc ,  are  well  illustrated  by  Mr  Bingham  in  his  Vindi- 
cation of  the  doctrine  and  liturgy  of  the  Church  of  En- 
gland, printed  at  Oxford,  177*,  page  23.  There  were 


*  The  chief  of  them   are  mentioned  by  Care,  under  Ignatius. 
|  Sec  Priestley,  pag«  127". 


APPENDIX. 

according  to  Justin,  SOME  countrymen  of  his,  Jews,  anil 
Samaritans,  "  who  confess  him  to  be  the  Christ,  yet 
affirm  him  to  be  a  mere  man."  The  same  Justin  says 
in  another  place,  First  Apol.  p.  78>  Ed.  Thirlby, — that 
he  had  observed  more  and  truer  Christians,  from  among 
the  Gentiles,  than  from  among  the  Jews  and  Samari- 
tans. This  passage,  (which  helps  to  confirm  Mr  Birig- 
ham's  translation  of  'H^e/iov  yewc?)  compared  with  the 
other,  contains  the  testimony  of  Justin,  that  there  were 
only  SOME  of  the  Jews  and  Samaritans,  and  still  fewer 
of  the  Gentiles,  professing  to  believe  in  Christ,  who  af- 
firmed him  to  be  a  mere  man. 

Page  39.  Dr  Priestley,  who  seems  to  be  very  mo- 
derately skilled  in  Greek,  may  give  a  faulty  translation 
sometimes,  through  inadvertency :  but  what  shall  we 
say  for  his  rendering  dirtav  tuxoyox,  a  specious  pretence  ? 
Can  he  really  think,  that  Athanasius  meant  to  speak  in 
this  style,  of  the  conduct  of  the  apostles  ?  'AIT/CC  t'v/^ycf 
occurs  in  Chrysostom  on  Matt.  xxiv.  42.  (torn,  ii,  p. 
448.  Ed.  Savil,)  where  though  a/I/a  signifies  somewhat 
differently,  eWoycc  bears  the  same  sense,  as  here,  of  wise 
and  reasonable. 

In  the  same  passage  tfxt<rQau  is  mistranslated.  As 
the  present  infinitives,  have  sometimes  a  future  sense  in 
the  best  classick  authors,  it  here  means  a  Messiah  TO 
COME,  as  the  next  sentence  evinces,  where  Christ  already 
come,  is  said  ewuOerai. 

49.  Another  inaccurate  version  of  Athanasius. 

50.  Another  of  the  like  kind  from  Chrysostom.    Dr 
Priestley  makes  him  say, — our  Saviour  never  taught 
his  own  divinity  in  express  words.     Chrysostom,  I  ap- 
prehend, says, — that  he  did  not  every  where,  or,  on  all 
occasions,  •  y  a-a/J*;^,  speak  plainly  of  his  own  divinity. 


APPENDIX. 

the  Judgment  of  Chrysostom,  he  sometimes  did  so. 
on  John  vi.  35,  36.  viii.  58,  x.  80. 

56.  Last  paragraph — Caiaphas  adjures  our  Saviour, 
by  the  living  God,  to  tell  them,  Whether  thou  be  the 
Christ^  the  Son  of  God  f  Our  Lord  avows,  these  char- 
acters, and  adds,  Nevertheless  (rather,  moreover)  /  say 
unto  you,  Hereafter  ye  shall  see  the  Son  of  Man  sitting 
ton  the  right  hand  of  power.  How  can  Dr  Priestley  ba 
sure,  in  what  sense  Caiaphas  understood  our  Lord's 
answer,  when  he  rent  his  clothes,  and  accused  him  of 
blasphemy  ?  Was  the  notion  of  a  Son  of  God  superior 
to  all  created  beings,  then  unknown  among  the  Jews  ? 
See,  besides  Bishop  Bull's  Defens.  Fidei  Nicsense,  cap. 
i.  sect,  i,  §  16,  p.  13,  a  remarkable  passage  quoted  from 
Philo  Jud.  by  Dr  Randolph,  Vindication  of  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Trinity,  part  I.  p.  29. 


LETTER  V. 

DR  PRIESTLEY  makes  the  fathers  acknowledge, 
that  the  apostles  did  not  preach  the  divinity  of  Christ 
early,  and  confidently  supposes  them  never  to  have 
taught  it. 

According  to  the  more  general  opinion,  St  Matthew 
wrote  his  gospel  early,  and  for  the  Jews.  In  the  open- 
ing of  this  gospel,  he  applies  the  name  Emmanuel  to 
our  Lord,  and  gives  his  own  interpretation  of  it,  God 
icith  us  :  by  which,  plain  people  conceive  him  to  mean 
what  St  Paul  expresses,  God  manifest  in  the  flesh  ;  and 
the  apostolical  Ignatius,  God  appearing  in  the  form  of 
a  man.  Ad,  Eph.  xix.  If  we  are  led  into  an  error,  it 


APPENOIX. 

is  by  taking  St  Matthew's  words  in  their  literal  and  ob- 
vious sense :  and  was  he  less  solicitous  about  the  truth 
than  even  Dr  Priestley  himself?  If  Dr  Priestley  had 
been  to  write  a  gospel,  according  to  his  own  theology, 
would  he  have  set  out  with  such  an  application  and 
interpretation  of  the  name  Emmanuel?  Quod  tu  non 
feceris,  Ego  fed?  might  St  Pauljisk;  who  writes  with 
the  greatest  simplicity,  and  never  uses  any  amplification 
of  any  subject  treated  by  him :  and,  as  we  may  justly 
conclude,  would  not  here  have  spoken  of  Christ  as  he 
has  done,  but  because  he  had  very  different  notions  of 
his  dignity,  from  those  of  Dr  Priestley  :  to  declare  which 
notions,  he  was  not  afraid  of  Jewish  prejudices  and 
clamour. 

In  the  same  gospel,  our  Lord  is  introduced  declaring, 
"No  one  knoweth  the  Son  but  the  Father;  neither 
knoweth  any  one  the  Father,  save  the  Son,  and  he  to 
whomsoever  the  Son  will  reveal  him."  Here,  the  ne- 
gative ouSi/c  being  universal,  we  seem  to  be  told,  that  the 
Father  and  Son  are  incomprehensible  to  all  created  in- 
telligences ;  and  that  all  they  can  really  know  of  the 
Father,  must  be  in  and  through  the  Son,  by  his  illumi- 
nating spirit.  Does  such  a  declaration  consist  with  Dr 
Priestley's  plan,  with  what  our  Lord  says  of  himself 
in  the  next  verse  but  one,  "  I  am  meek  and  lowly  in 
heart?"  Utique  parum  modeste  (sit  verbo  veniaj  de 
seipso  locutus  est  Christus,  aut  alias  loquentes  audivit, 
si  nihil  interea  prceter  merum  hommem  se  esse  noverit. 
Burnet  de  Fide  et  Officiis,  p.  20.* 


*  This  is  quoted  by  Dr  Randolph,  Vifid.  Part  II,  p.  42,  where  a  similar  passnge 
in  cited  from  St  Chrysostom. 


APPENDIX.  §99 

The  same  Saviour,  in  the  concluding  paragraph  of 
this  gospel,  commands  his  apostles  to  evangelize  all 
nations,  baptizing  them  in  the  name  of  the  Father,  and 
of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Gftiost.  Dr  Priestley  con- 
siders  the  Holy  spirit  as  an  attribute  of  the  Father,  not 
a  person  : — but  does  our  Lord,  if  he  had  only  an  exalt- 
ed humanity,  thrust  himself  in  between  the  Most  High, 
and  one  of  his  incommunicable  attributes  ?  or  does  he 
join  two  persons  with  an  attribute,  in  a  most  solemn 
form  of  words,  which  leads  us  almost  inevitably  to  be- 
lieve, that  the  third  is  a  person  also  ?  Would  such  a 
conduct  appear  suitable  to  his  care  and  tenderness,  to 
guide  his  flock  into  the  whole  truth?  The  supposition, 
seems  impossible;  and  nothing  can  be  more  certain, 
than  that  the  very  first  evangelist,  in  full  harmony  with 
all  the  succeeding  sacred  writers,  exhibits  to  us  the 
divinity  of  Christ,  in  the  beginning,  middle,  and  end  of 
his  gospel. 

It  is  objected  to  this  form  of  baptism,  that  the  use  of 
it  does  not  appear  any  where  in  the  Acts  of  the  apos- 
tles. This  objection  is,  I  think,  well  answered  by 
Mr  Bingham,  Vindicat.  p.  37 — 41.  particularly  from 
Acts  xix. 

Page  63.  Towards  the  end  of  the  first  paragraph,, 
Dr  Priestley  seems  to  betray  some  suspicions,  that  St 
Paul  did  in  truth  teach  the  divinity  of  Christ. 

Page  69.  Last  paragraph.  The  reasoning  appears 
rather  extraordinary  on  the  passage  of  Athanasius,  who 
seems  made,  by  Dr  Priestley,  to  consider  things  in  the 
same  light,  between,  which  he  is-  studious  to  point  out 
au  eternal  difference. 


APPENDIX! 


LETTER  VII. 

Page  $2.  «  IF  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  be  true, 
it  is  no  doubt  in  the  highest  degree  important  and  inter- 
esting." So  Dr  Priestley  can  say,  when  it  servres  iiis 
purpose.  But  how  does  this  agree  with  his  previous 
observations.  No.  IV.  p.  85,  &c.  ? 

Page  133.  It  is  somewhat  hard  to  discover,  how  the 
remark  on  Eusebius,  and  his  treatment  of  the  Unitari- 
ans, at  that  time  very  numerous,  agrees  with  the  obser- 
vation in  the  preceding  paragraph. 

Page  135.  Was  the  hymn,  which  as  Pliny  tells  us 
in  his  noted  epistle,  was  sung  to  Christ  quasi  Deo,  novel, 
in  the  time  of  Paul  of  Samosata? 

Page  136.  Dr  Priestley  should,  I  think,  have  pre- 
fixed that  which  seems  to  be  his  ruling  maxim,  that  the 
human  mind  is  competent  to  search  all  things,  even  the 
deep  things  of  God. 

Whether  he,  or  Mr  Burgh,  in  the  first  chapter  of  his 
Scriptural  Confutation,  lays  down  the  province  of  reason 
in  the  better  way,  let  others  determine. 


No.  IV. 
i  W.  8f  M.  c.  18. 

PROVIDED  always,  That  neither  this  act,  nor  any 
clause,  article,  or  thing  herein  contained,  shall  extend 
-  to  give  any  ease,  benefit,  or  advantage  to  any 
person  that  shall  deny  in  his  preaching  or  writing,  the 
doctrine  of  the  Blessed  Trinity,  as  it  is  declared  in  the 
aforesaid  articles  of  religion. 


301 


PROVIDED  always,  That  no  congregation  or  as- 
sembly  for  religion,  shall  be  permitted  or  allowed  by 
this  act,  until  the  place  of  such  meeting  shall  be  certified 
to  the  bishop  of  the  diocese,  or  to  the  archdeacon  of  the 
archdeaconry,  or  to  the  justices  of  the  peace,  at  the  gene- 
ral or  quarter-  sessions  of  the  peace  for  the  county,  city, 
or  place  in  which  such  meeting  shall  be  held,  and  regis- 
tered in  the  said  bishop's  or  archdeacon's  court  respec- 
tively, or  recorded  at  the  said  general  or  quarter-sessions. 


No.  VI. 
19  G.  IU.  c.  44. 

be  it  enacted, That  every  person  dis- 
senting from  the  church  in  holy  orders,  or  pretended 
holy  orders,  or  pretending  to  holy  orders,  being  a  preach- 
er or  teacher  of  any  congregation  of  dissenting  Protes- 
tants, who shall  take  the  oaths,  and  make  and  sub- 
scribe the  declaration  against  popery,  required  by  the 
said  act,  (1  W.  &  M.  c.  18,)  and  shall  also  make  and 
subscribe  a  declaration  in  the  words  following,  videlicet. 

"  I  A.  B.  do  solemnly  declare,  in  the  presence  of 
Almighty  God,  that  1  am  a  Christian  and  a  Protestant, 
and  as  such,  that  I  believe  that  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old 
and  New  Testament,  as  commonly  received  among  Pro- 
testant churches,  do  contain  the  revealed  will  of  God  ; 
and  that  I  do  receive  the  same  as  the  rule  of  my  doctrine 


APPENDIX. 

and  practice."  Shall  be entitled  to  all  the  exemp- 
tions, benefits,  privileges  and  advantages  granted  to 
Protestant  dissenting  ministers,  by  i  W.  &  M.  c.  18, 

and  by  10  A.  c. and  every  such  person,  qualifying 

himself  as  aforesaid,  shall  be  exempted  from  serving  in 
the  militia  of  this  kingdom,  and  shall  also  be  exempted 
from  any  imprisonment  or  other  punishment,  by  virtue  of 
the  act  of  uniformity,  &c. 


SERMON 

ON  THE 

INCARNATION, 

PREACHED  IN  THE 

PARISH  CHURCH 

OP 

ST  MARY  NEWINGTON, 

IN  SURREY,  Dec.  25, 1785. 


SERMON, 

fife. 


LUKE  i.  28. 

•Hail !  thou  that  art  highly  favoured,  the  Lord  to 
with  thee  :  Blessed  art  thou  among  women. 

THAT  she,  who  in  these  terms  was  saluted  by  au 
angel,  should  in  after  ages  become  an  object  of  super- 
stitious adoration,  is  a  thing  far  less  to  be  wondered, 
than  that  men,  professing  to  build  their  whole  hopes  of 
immortality  on  the  promises  delivered  in  the  sacred 
books,  and  closely  interwoven  with  the  history  of  our 
Saviour's  life,  should  question  the  truth  of  the  message 
which  the  angel  brought.  Some  nine  years  since,  the 
Christian  Church,  was  no  less  astonished  than  offended, 
by  an  extravagant  attempt*  to  heighten,  as  it  was  pre- 
tended, the  importance  of  the  Christian  revelation,  by 
overturning  one  of  those  first  principles  of  natural  reli« 
gion,  which  had  for  ages  been  considered  as  the  basis. 


*  Disquisition*  relating  to  Matter  and  Spirit,  kc.  Lgodoa  1777. 
2Q 


306  A  SERMON 

upon  which  the  whole  superstructure  of  revelation  stands. 
The  notion  of  an  immaterial  principle  in  man,  which, 
without  an  immediate  exertion  of  the  Divine  power,  to 
the  express  purpose  of  its  destruction,  must  necessarily 
survive  the  dissolution  of  the  body ;  the  notion  of  an 
immortal  soul,  was  condemned  and  exploded,  as  an  in- 
vention  of  heathen  philosophy.     Death  was  represented 
as  an  utter  extinction  of  the  whole  man,  and  the  evan- 
gelical doctrine  of  a  resurrection  of  the  body,  in  an  im- 
proved state,  to  receive  again  its  immortal  inhabitant, 
was  heightened  into  the  mystery  of  a  reproduction  of  the 
annihilated  person.     How  a  person  once  annihilated 
could  be  re-produced,  so  as  to  be  the  same  person  which 
had  formerly  existed,  when  no  principle  of  sameness, 
nothing  necessarily  permanent,  was  supposed  to  enter 
the  original  composition  ;  how  the  present  person  could 
be  interested  in  the  future  person's  fortunes ;  why  / 
should  be  at  all  concerned  for  the  happiness  or  misery  of 
the  man,  who  some  ages  hence  shall  be  raised  from  my 
ashes ;  when  the  future  man  could  be  no  otherwise  the 
same  with  me,  than  as  he  was  arbitrarily  to  be  called  , 
the  same,  because  his  body  was  to  be  eomposed  of  th&  j 
same  matter  which  now  composes  mine  :  these  difficul- 1 
ties  were  but  ill  explained.     It  was  thought  a  sufficient  j 
recommendation  of  the  system,  with  all  its  difficulties,  j 
that  the  promise  of  a  resurrection  of  the  body  seemed 
to  acquire  a  new  importance  from  it,  (but  the  truth  is, 
that  it  would  lose  its  whole  importance,  if  this  system 
could  be  established,  since  it  would  become  a  mere  pre- 
diction concerning  a  future  race  of  men,  and  would  be 
no  promise  to  any  men  now  existing,)  and  the  notion  of 
the  soul's  natural  immortality,  was  deemed  an  unseemly 
appendage  of  a  Christian's  belief,  for  this  singular  re  ft- 


ON  THE  INCARNATION.  307 

son,  that  it  bad  been  entertained  by  wise  and  virtuous 
heathens,  who  had  received  no  light  from  the  Christian, 
nor,  as  it  was  supposed,  from  an  earlier  revelation. 

It  might  have  been  expected,  that  this  anxiety  to  ex- 
tinguish every  ray  of  hope,  which  beams  not  from  the 
glorious  promises  of  the  gospel,  would  have  been  accom- 
panied with  the  most  entire  submission  of  the  under- 
standing  to  the  letter  of  the  written  word ;  the  most  anx- 
ious solicitude  for  the  credit  of  the  sacred  writers  ;  the 
warmest  zeal  to  maintain  every  circumstance  in  the  his- 
tory of  our  Saviour's  life,  which  might  add  authority  to 
his  precepts,  and  weight  to  his  promises,  by  heightening 
the  dignity  of  his  person.  But  so  inconsistent  with  itself 
is  human  folly,  that  they  who  at  one  time,  seemed  to 
think  it  a  preliminary,  to  be  required  of  every  one  who 
would  come  to  a  right  belief  of  the  gospel,  that  he 
should  unlearn  and  unbelieve  what  philosophy  had  been 
thought  to  have  in  common  with  the  gospel,  as  if  reason 
and  revelation  could  in  nothing  agree ;  upon  other  oc- 
casions, discover  an  aversion  to  the  belief  of  any  thing, 
which  at  all  puts  our  reason  to  a  stand :  and  iu  order  to 
wage  war  with  mystery,  with  the  more  advantage,  they 
scruple  not  to  deny,  that  that  Spirit  which  enlightened 
the  first  preachers  in  the  delivery  of  their  oral  instruc- 
tion, and  rendered  them  infallible  teachers  of  the  age 
hi  which  they  lived,  directed  them  in  the  composition 
of  those  writings,  which  they  left  for  the  edification 
of  succeeding  ages.*  They  pretend  to  have  made 


*  °  I  have  frequently  declared  myself,  not  to  be  a  believer  in  the  inspiration  of 
e  evangelists  and  apostles  as  writers."    Dr  Priestley's  Letters  to  Dr 


308  A  SERMON 

discoveries  of  inconclusive  reasoning  in  the  epistles  ;* 
of  doubtful  facts  in  the  gospels :  and  appealing  from 
the  testimony  of  the  apostles  to  their  own  judgments, 
they  have  not  scrupled  to  declare  their  opinion,  that  the 
miraculous  conception  of  our  Lord,  is  a  subject,  "  with 
respect  to  which,  any  person  is  at  full  liberty  to  think, 
as  the  evidence  shall  appear  to  him,  without  any  im- 
peachment of  his  faith  or  character  as  a  Christian."! 
And  lest  a  simple  avowal  of  this  extraordinary  opiniou 
should  not  be  sufficiently  offensive,  it  is  accompanied 
with  ceHain  obscure  insinuations,!  the  reserved  meaning 
of  which  we  are  little  anxious  to  divine,  which  seem  ill- 
tended  to  prepare  the  world  not  to  be  surprised,  if  some- 
thing  still  more  extravagant,  if  more  extravagant  may 
be,  should  in  a  little  time  be  declared. 

We  are  assembled  this  day,  to  commemorate  our 
Lord's  Nativity.  It  is  not  as  the  birth-day  of  a  prophet 
that  this  day  is  sanctified  ;  but  as  the  anniversary  of  that 
great  event,  which  had  been  announced  by  the  whole 
succession  of  prophets,  from  the  beginning  of  the  world ; 
and  in  which  the  predictions  concerning  the  manner  of 
the  Messiah's  advent,  received  their  complete  and  literal 
accomplishment.  In  the  predictions,  as  well  as  in  the 
corresponding  event,  the  circumstance  of  the  miraculous 
conception,  makes  so  principal  a  part,  that  we  shall  not 
easily  find  subjects  of  meditation,  more  suited  either  to 
the  season,  or  to  the  times,  than  these  two  points  ;  the 
importance  of  this  doctrine,  as  an  article  of  the  Chris* 


*  Hist.  «f  Carrap.  TO!,  ii.  p.  370. 

•Jr  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  Part  L  p.  132; 

*  Ibid.  p.  54. 


ON  THE  INCARNATION. 

LU  faith,  and  the  sufficiency  of  the  erideuce  by  which 
the  fact  is  supported. 

First,  for  the  importance  of  the  doctrine,  as  an  article 
of  the  faith ;  it  is  evidently  the  foundation  of  the  whole 
distinction  between  the  character  of  Christ,  in  the  condi- 
tion of  a  man,  and  that  of  any  other  prophet.  Had  the 
conception  of  Jesus  been  in  the  natural  way ;  had  he 
been  the  fruit  of  Mary's  marriage  with  her  husband,  his 
intercourse  with  the  Deity  could  have  been  of  no  other 
kind,  than  the  nature  of  any  other  man  might  have 
equally  admitted  :  an  intercourse  of  no  higher  kind  than 
the  prophets  enjoyed,  when  their  minds  were  enlighten- 
ed by  the  extraordinary  influence  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 
The  information  conveyed  to  Jesus,  might  have  been 
clearer  and  more  extensive,  than  any  imparted  to  any 
former  prophet ;  but  the  manner  and  the  means  of  com- 
munication, must  have  been  the  same.  The  holy  Scrip, 
tures  speak  a  very  different  language  :  they  tell  us,  that 
the  "  same  God  who  spake  in  times  past  to  the  fathers 
by  the  prophets,  hath  in  these  latter  days  spoken  unto 
us  by  his  Son  ;"*  evidently  establishing  a  distinction 
of  Christianity  from  preceding  revelations,  upon  a  dis- 
tinction between  the  two  char-.tcters  of  a  prophet  of  God, 
and  of  God's  Son.  Moses,  the  great  lawgiver  of  the 
Jews,  is  described  in  the  book  of  Deuteronomy,  as  su- 
perior to  all  succeeding  prophets,  for  the  intimacy  of  bis 
intercourse  with  God,  for  the  variety  of  his  miracles,  and 
for  the  authority  with  which  he  was  invested.  "  There 
arose  not  a  prophet  in  Israel  like  unto  Moses,  whom 
Jehovah  knew  face  to  face  :  in  all  the  signs  and  wonders 


Hebrews  i,  15 


310  A  SERMON 

tyhich  Jehovah  sent  him  to  do  in  the  land  of  Egypt,  to 
Pharoah,  and  all  his  servants,  and  to  all  his  land  :  and 
in  all  that  mighty  hand,  and  in  all  the  great  terror, 
which  Moses  showed  in  the  sight  of  all  Israel."*  Yrt 
this  great  prophet,  raised  up  to  be  the  leader  and  the 
legislator  of  God's  people  ;  this  greatest  of  the  prophets, 
"with  whom  Jehovah  conversed  face  to  face,  as  a  man 
talketh  with  his  friend  ;  bore,  as  we  are  told,  to  Jesus, 
the  humble  relation  of  a  servant  to  a  son  :f  and  lest 
the  superiority  on  the  side  of  the  Son,  should  be  deem- 
ed a  mere  superiority  of  the  office  to  which  he  was  ap- 
pointed, we  are  told,  that  the  Son  is  "  higher  than  the 
angels,"  being  the  effulgence  of  God's  glory,  the  express 
image  of  his  person/?J  the  God  ft  whose  throne  is  for- 
ever and  ever,  the  sceptre  of  whose  kingdom  is  a  sceptro 
€f  righteousness  :"||  and  this  high  dignity  of  the  Son,  is 
alleged  as  a  motive  for  religious  obedience  to  his  com- 
mands, and  for  reliance  on  his  promises.  It  is  this  in- 
deed  which  gives  such  authority  to  his  precepts,  and 
such  certainty  to  his  whole  doctrine,  as  render  faith  in 
him  the  first  duty  of  religion  :  had  Christ  been  a  mere 
prophet,  to  believe  in  Christ  had  been  the  same  thing  as 
to  believe  in  John  the  Baptist.  The  messages  indeed, 
announced  on  the  part  of  God  by  Christ,  and  by  John 
the  Baptist,  might  have  been  different ;  and  the  impor- 
tance of  the  different  messages  unequal ;  but  the  princi- 
ple of  belief  in  either,  must  have  been  the  same. 

Hence  it  appears,  that  the  intercourse  which  Christ, 
as  a  man,  held  with  God,   was  different  in  kind,  from 


•  Dent-  XXXIT.  10—12.  |  Heb-  »'•  S* 

*  Heb.  i.  3—6.  1  Heb.  i.  8. 


ON  THE  INCARNATION.  311 

that  which  the  greatest  of  the  prophets  ever  had  enjoy- 
ed :  and  yet  how  it  should  differ,  otherwise  than  in  the 
degree  of  frequency  and  intimacy,  it  will  not  be  very  easy 
to  explain ;  unless  we  adhere  to  the  faith  transmitted  to 
us  from  the  primitive  ages,  and  believe  that  the  Eternal 
Word,  who  was  in  the  beginning  with  God,  and  was 
God,  so  joined  to  himself  the  holy  thing,  which  was 
formed  in  Mary's  womb,  that  the  two  natures,  from  the 
commencement  of  the  virgin's  conception,  made  one  per- 
son. Between  God  and  any  living  being,  having  a 
distinct  personality  of  his  own,  separate  from  the  God- 
head, no  other  communion  could  obtain,  than  what 
should  consist  in  the  action  of  the  Divine  Spirit,  upon 
the  faculties  of  the  separate  person.  This  communion 
with  God,  the  prophets  enjoyed :  but  Jesus,  according 
to  the  primitive  doctrine,  was  so  united  to  the  ever-living 
Word,  that  the  very  existence  of  the  man,  consisted  in 
this  union.*  We  shall  not  indeed  find  this  proposition, 
that  the  existence  of  Mary's  Son  consisted  from  the  first, 
and  ever  shall  consist,  in  his  union  with  the  Word  ;  we 


*  So  Theodoret,  in  the  fourth  of  his  Seven  Dialogues  about  the  Trinity,  pub- 
Bshed  under  the  name  of  Athanasius.  The  persons  in  this  dialogue,  are  an 
Orthodox  Believer,  and  an  Apoilinarian.  The  Apollinarian  asks,  Oy*  Ktv  tsv  l»y*t 
•,  the  Believer  replies,  *«y  <n  Ac>«  *T»  mbparvt  ewrov  o*Sa.  vmeaLilaL,  w,  -^ 
iv  au>r»  ty  T»  r/ow«  T*  Aa^x  yvafi^a.  To  the  same  purpose  Joannes  Darnnsce- 
BUS,  •  •  •  *  -yap  <tffwrcfaLf»  x*6*  tatulw  <r&piu 
y*c/n  T»C  a>fctc  <o-2$6*«<  A7rifacr]u(,  ty  T»  taunts  UTTO&TU  «  im  er\iuv 


't  ATTO2  *O  AOFO2  FENOMENO2  TH 
De  Fide  Orthodoxa,  lib.  3.  cap.  ii;  and  again,  cap.  vii. 
<*<  culm  XjHfailtnu  T»  o-apu  wowm  »'  TV  Qat  Ao>»  i>T;?*<nr.     So  also  Gregory 
Nazianzen,  u  -r/c  fatTrcr^a^tu  TCV   nrfl^arror,  «&'   weftPvwaa  *eyn    S«y,  txiautpflat. 

2<r«  o(  &  (tfpa^nln  ^:i  **7*  yjtfri  KHpymttvoj,  «tAX*  p*  ttofl'  army  ffi 
•n  x«u  <rwa.7fltt$Ait  <m  xw«  <rn; 
ad  Cledton.  I. 


31 1)  A  SERMON. 

shall  not  find  this  proposition,  in  these  terms  in  Scrip- 
ture. Would  to  God  the  necessity  never  had  arisen,  of 
stating  the  discoveries  of  revelation  in  metaphysical 
propositions!  The  inspired  writers  delivered  their  sn- 
blimest  doctrines,  in  popular  language,  and  abstained, 
as  much  as  it  was  possible  to  abstain,  from  a  philoso- 
phical phraseology.  By  the  perpetual  cavils  of  gainsay, 
ers,  and  the  difficulties  which  they  have  raised,  later 
teachers,  in  the  assertion  of  the  same  doctrines,  have 
been  reduced  to  the  unpleasing  necessity,  of  availing 
themselves  of  the  greater  precision  of  a  less  familiar 
language. 

But  if  we  find  not  the  same  proposition  in  the  same 
words  in  Scripture,  we  find  in  Scripture  what  amounts 
to  a  clear  proof  of  the  proposition.  We  find  the  char- 
acteristick  properties  of  both  natures,  the  human  and  the 
divine,  ascribed  to  the  same  person.  We  read  of  Jesus, 
that  he  suffered  from  hunger  and  from  fatigue  ;  that  he 
wept  for  grief,  and  was  distressed  with  fear ;  that  he 
was  obnoxious  to  all  the  evils  of  humanity,  except  the 
propensity  to  sin.  We  read  of  the  same  Jesus,  that  he 
had  "  glory  with  the  Father  before  the  world  began  ;"* 
that  "  all  things  were  created  by  him,f  both  in  heaven 
and  in  earth,  visible  and  invisible ;  whether  they  be 
thrones,  or  dominions,  or  principalities,  or  powers  ;  all 
things  were  created  by  him,  and  for  hira'?J  and  "  he 
upholdeth  all  things  by  the  word  of  bis  power  :||  and 
that  we  may  in  some  sort  understand,  how  infirmity 
and  perfection  should  thus  meet  in  the  same  person, 


*  John  rvii.  5.  f  Ibid.  i.  3. 

*  Coloss.  i.  16.  I)  Heb.  i.  3, 


ON  THE  INCARNATION.  g  J  3 

we  are  told  by  St  John,  that  the  "  Word  was  made 
flesh." 

It  was  clearly,  therefore,  the  doctrine  of  holy  writ, 
and  nothing  else,  which  the  fathers  asserted,  in  terms 
borrowed  from  the  schools  of  philosophy,  when  they 
affirmed,  that  the  very  principle  of  personality  and  in- 
dividual existence,  in  Mary's  Son,  was  union  with  the 
uncreated  Word.*  A  doctrine,  in  which  a  miraculous 
conception  would  have  been  implied,  had  the  thing  not 
been  recorded ;  since  a  man,  conceived  in  the  ordinary 
way,  would  have  derived  the  principles  of  his  existence 
from  the  mere  physical  powers  of  generation.  Union 
with  the  Divine  nature,  could  not  have  been  the  prin- 
ciple of  an  existence  physically  derived  from  Adam ; 
and  that  intimate  union  of  God  and  man,  in  the  Re* 
deemer's  person,  which  the  Scriptures  so  clearly  assert, 
had  been  a  physical  impossibility. 

But,  we  need  not  go  so  high  as  to  the  Divine  nature 
of  our  Lord,  to  evince  the  necessity  of  his  miraculous 
conception :  it  was  necessary  to  the  scheme  of  redemp- 
tion, by  the  Redeemer's  offering  of  himself  as  an  expia- 
tory sacrifice,  that  the  manner  of  his  conception  should 
be  such  ;  that  he  should  in  no  degree  partake  of  the 
natural  pollution  of  the  fallen  race,  whose  guilt  he  came 
to  atone,  nor  be  included  in  the  general  condemnation 
of  Adam's  progeny.  In  what  the  stain  of  original  si» 
may  consist,  and  in  what  manner  it  may  be  propagated, 


€O  w  ©tsc  A»> 

7o,  «>.X*  ewafo  *att  <v 


euflx 

^vtfio  T»  rttsxi  u7r<x<tfftc.    Joann.  Daina- 
n.  De  Fide  Orthodoxn.  lib.  3.  cap.  xi. 

40 


A  SERMON 

it  is  not  to  my  present  purpose  to  inquire :  it  is  suffi* 
cieut,  that  Adam's  crime,  by  the  appointment  of  Provi- 
dence, involved  his  whole  posterity  in  punishment.  "  In 
Adam,"  says  the  apostle,  "  all  die  :"*  and  for  many 
lives  thus  forfeited,  a  single  life,  itself  a  forfeit,  had  been 
BO  ransom  :  nor,  by  the  Divine  sentence  only,  inflicting 
death  on  the  progeny,  for  the  offence  of  the  progenitor ; 
but  by  the  proper  guilt  of  his  own  sins,  every  one  sprung 
by  natural  descent  from  the  loins  of  Adam,  is  a  debtor 
to  Divine  Justice,  and  incapable  of  becoming  a  mediator 
for  his  brethren.  "  In  many  things,"  says  St  James, 

*'  we  offend  all."f  "  W  we  say  tnat  we  nave  no  s^% 
we  deceive  ourselves,"  saith  St  John,  "  and  the  truth  is 
not  in  us :  and,  if  any  man  sin,  we  have  an  advocate 
with  the  Father,  Jesus  Christ  the  righteous  :  and  he  is 
the  propitiation  for  our  sins."}  Even  we  Christians  all 
offend,  without  exception  even  of  the  first  and  best 
Christians,  the  apostles.  But  St  John  clearly  separates 
the  righteous  advocate  from  the  mass  of  those  offenders 
-~that  any  Christian  is  enabled,  by  the  assistance  of 
God's  Spirit,  to  attain  to  that  degree  of  purity,  which 
may  entitle  him  to  the  future  benefits  of  the  redemption, 
is  itself  a  present  benefit  of  the  propitiation  which  hath 
been  made  for  us  :  and  he,  who,  under  the  assault  of 
every  temptation,  maintained  that  unsullied  innocence, 
which  gives  merit  and  efficacy  to  his  sacrifice  and  inter- 
cession,  could  not  be  of  the  number  of  those,  whose 
offences  called  for  an  expiation,  and  whose  frailties 
needed  a  Divine  assistance,  to  raise  them  effectually 


»  1  Cor.  XT.  22.  |  James  iiK  2. 

4  1  John  i.  8;  *nd  ,i    t. 


ON  THE  INCARNATION. 


A  SEKMUN 

business  ;  and  the  supernatural  conception,  had  been  au 
unnecessary  miracle  :  He,  therefore,  who  came  in  this 
miraculous  way,  came  upon  some  higher  business,  to 
which  a  mere  man  was  unequal.  He  came  to  be  made 
a  sin-offering  for  us,  "  that  we  might  be  made  the  right- 
eousness of  God  in  him."* 

So  close,  therefore,  is  the  connexion  of  this  extraordi- 
nary fact  with  the  cardinal  doctrines  of  the  gospel,  that 
it  may  be  justly  deemed  a  necessary  branch  of  the 
scheme  of  redemption  :  and  in  no  other  light  was  it  con- 
sidered by  St  Paul,  who  mentions  it  among  the  charac- 
teristicks  of  the  Redeemer,  that  he  should  be  "  made  of 
a  woman  :"f  *n  this  short  sentence,  St  Paul  bears  a  re- 
markable testimony  to  the  truth  of  the  evangelical  histo- 
ry, in  this  circumstance  ;  and  you,  my  brethren,  have  not 
so  learned  Christ,  but  that  you  will  prefer  the  testimony 
of  St  Paul,  to  the  rash  judgment  of  those,  who  have 
dared  to  tax  this  "  chosen  vessel"  of  the  Lord,  with 
error  and  inaccuracy. 

The  opinion  of  these  men,  is  indeed  the  less  to  be 
regarded,  for  the  want  of  insight,  which  they  discover, 
into  the  real  interests  and  proper  connexions  of  their 
own  system  :  it  is  by  no  means  sufficient  for  their  pur- 
pose, that  they  insist  not  on  the  belief  of  the  miraculous 
conception — they  must  insist  upon  the  disbelief  of  it,  if 
they  expect  to  make  discerning  men  proselytes  to  their 
Socinian  doctrine :  they  must  disprove  it,  before  they 
can  reduce  the  gospel  to  what  their  scheme  of  interpre- 


*  2  Cor.  v.  21. 

f  Gal.  iv.  4.  "  There  is  no  reference  to  the  miraculous  conception,  either 
in  the  book  of  Acts,  or  in  ami  of  the  Episttes."  J)r  Prie*Uey*»  Letters  to  Dr  Hors- 
P-y,  p.  53. 


ON  THE  INCARNATION. 

ion  makes  it, — a  mere  religion  of  nature,  a  system  of 
best  practical  Deism,  enforced  by  the  sanction  of 
high  rewards,  and  formidable  punishments,  in  a  future 
life  ;  which  are  yet  no  rewards  and  no  punishments,  but 
simply  the  enjoyments  and  the  sufferings  of  a  new  race 
of  men,  to  be  made  out  of  old  materials ;  and  therefore 
constitute  no  sanction,  when  the  principles  of  the  mate- 
rialist,  are  incorporated  with  those  of  the  Socinian,  in 
the  finished  creed  of  the  modern  Unitarian. 

Having  seen  the  importance  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
miraculous  conception,  as  an  article  of  our  faith  ;  let  us 
in  the  next  place  consider  the  sufficiency  of  the  evidence, 
by  which  the  fact  is  supported. 

We  have  for  it,  the  express  testimony  of  two  out  of 
the  four  evangelists  :  of  St  Matthew,  whose  gospel  was 
published  in  Judea,  within  a  few  years  after  our  Lord's 
ascension  ;  and  of  St  Luke,  whose  narrative  was  com- 
posed, as  may  be  collected  from  the  author's  short  pre- 
face, to  prevent  the  mischief  that  was  to  be  apprehend- 
ed, from  some  pretended  histories  of  our  Saviour's  life, 
in  which  the  truth  was  probably  blended  with  many 
legendary  tales.  It  is  very  remarkable,  that  the  fact 
of  the  miraculous  conception,  should  be  found  in  the 
first  of  the  four  gospels  ;  written  at  a  time,  when  many 
of  the  near  relations  of  the  Holy  Family  must  have 
been  living,  by  whom  the  story,  had  it  been  false,  had 
been  easily  confuted  :  that  it  should  be  found  again  in 
St  Luke's  gospel ;  written  for  the  peculiar  use  of  the 
converted  Gentiles,  and  for  the  express  purpose  of  fur- 
nishing a  summary  of  authentick  facts,  and  of  suppres- 
sing spurious  narrations.  Was  it  not  ordered  by  some 
peculiar  providence  of  God,  that  the  two  great  braiu.1^3 
«€  the  primitive  church,  the  Hebrew  congregations,  for 


318  A  SERMOK 

which  St  Matthew  wrote,  and  the  Greek  congregations, 
for  which  St  Luke  wrote,  should  find  an  express  record 
of  the  miraculous  conception,  each  in  its  proper  gospel? 
Or,  if  we  consider  the  testimony  of  the  writers,  simply 
as  historians  of  the  times  in  which  they  lived,  without 
regard  to  their  inspiration,  which  is  not  admitted  by  the 
adversary ;  were  not  Matthew  and  Luke,  Matthew, 
one  of  the  twelve  apostles  of  our  Lord,  and  Luke,  the 
companion  of  St  Paul,  competent  to  examine  the  evi- 
dence of  the  facts  which  they  have  recorded  ?  Is  it 
likely  that  they  have  recorded  facts,  upon  the  credit  of 
a  vague  report,  without  examination  ?  and  was  it  re- 
served for  the  Unitarians  of  the  eighteenth  century,  to 
detect  their  errors?  St  Luke,  thought  himself  parti- 
cularly well  qualified  for  the  work  in  which  he  en- 
gaged,  by  his  exact  knowledge  of  the  story  which  he 
undertook  to  write,  in  all  its  circumstances,  from  the 
very  beginning :  it  is  said,  indeed,  by  a  writer  of  the 
very  first  antiquity,  and  high  in  credit,  that  his  gospel 
was  composed  from  St  Paul's  sermons  ;  "  Luke,  the  at- 
tendant of  St  Paul,"  says  Irenseus,  «  put  into  his  book 
the  gospel  preached  by  that  apostle  :"  this  being  pre- 
mised, attend  I  beseech  you,  to  the  account  which  St 
Luke  gives  of  his  own  undertaking  :  "  it  seemed  good 
to  me  also,  having  had  perfect  understanding  of  all 
things  from  the  very  first,  to  write  unto  thee  in  order, 
most  excellent  Theophilus;  that  thou  mightest  know 
the  certainty  of  those  things,  wherein  thou  hast  been 
instructed."  The  last  verse  might  be  more  literally 
rendered  "that  thou  might  know  the  exact  truth  of 
those  doctrines,  wherein  thou  hast  been  CATECHISED  :" 
St  Luke's  gospel  therefore,  if  the  writer's  own  word 
may  be  taken  about  his  own,  work,  is  an  historical  ex. 


ON  THE  INCARNATION,  319 

position  of  the  Catechism,  which  Theophilus  had  learn- 
ed,  when  he  was  first  made  a  Christian.  The  two  first 
articles,  in  this  historical  exposition,  are  the  history  of 
the  Baptist's  birth,  and  that  of  Mary's  miraculous  im- 
pregnation :  we  have  much  more  therefore,  than  the 
testimony  of  St  Luke,  in  addition  to  that  of  St  Mat- 
thew, to  the  truth  of  the  fact  of  the  miraculous  concep- 
tion ;  we  have  the  testimony  of  St  Luke,  that  this  fact, 
was  a  part  of  the  earliest  catechetical  instruction :  a 
part  of  the  catechism,  no  doubt,  which  St  Paul's  con- 
certs learnt  of  the  apostle.  Let  this  then  be  your  an- 
swer, if  any  man  shall  ask  you  a  reason  of  this  part  of 
your  faith ;  tell  him,  that  you  have  been  learning  St 
Paul's  catechism. 

From  what  hath  been  said,  you  will  easily  perceive, 
that  the  evidence  of  the  fact  of  our  Lord's  miraculous 
conception,  is  answerable  to  the  great  importance  of 
the  doctrine;  and  you  will  esteem  it  aii  objoction  of  little 
weight,  that  the  modern  advocates  of  the  Unitarian 
tenets,  cannot  otherwise  give  a  colour  to  their  wretched 
cause,  than  by  denying  the  inspiration  of  the  sacred 
historians,  that  they  may  seem  to  themselves  at  liberty 
to  reject  their  testimony.  You  will  remember,  that  the 
doctrines  of  the  Christian  revelation,  were  not  original- 
ly delivered  in  a  system ;  but  interwoven  in  the  history 
of  our  Saviour's  life :  to  say  therefore  that  the  first 
preachers  were  not  inspired,  in  the  composition  of  the 
|  narratives  in  which  their  doctrine  is  conveyed,  is  nearly 
the  same  thing,  as  to  deny  their  inspiration  in  the 
[general :  you  will,  perhaps,  think  it  incredible,  thafc 
icy,  who  were  assisted  by  the  Divine  Spirit,  when 
icy  preached,  should  be  deserted  by  that  Spirit,  when 
jy  committed  what  they  had  preached  to  writing :  you 


320 


A  SERMON 


will  think  it  improbable,  that  they,  who  were  endowed 
with  the  gift  of  discerning  spirits,  should  be  endowed 
with  no  gift  of  discerning  the  truth  of  facts  :  you  will 
recollect  one  instance  upon  record,  in  which  St  Peter 
detected  a  falsehood  by  the  light  of  inspiration ;  and 
you  will  perhaps  be  inclined  to  think,  that  it  could  be 
of  no  less  importance  to  the  church,  that  the  apostles  and 
evangelists,  should  be  enabled  to  detect  falsehoods  in 
the  history  of  our  Saviour's  life ;  than  that  St  Peter 
should  be  enabled  to  detect  Ananias's  lie,  about  the 
lale  of  his  estate.  You  will  think  it  unlikely,  that  they 
who  were  led  by  the  Spirit  into  all  truth,  should  be 
permitted  to  lead  the  whole  church  for  many  ages  into 
error:  that  they  should  be  permitted  to  leave  behind 
them,  as  authentick  memoirs  of  their  master's  life,  nar- 
ratives compiled  with  little  judgment  or  selection,  from 
the  stories  of  the  day,  from  facts  and  fictions  in  pro  mis- 
cuous  circulation  :  the  credulity,  which  swallows  these 
contradictions,  while  it  strains  at  mysteries ;  is  not  the 
faith  which  will  remove  mountains.  The  Ebionites  of 
antiquity,  little  as  they  were  famed  for  penetration  and 
discernment,  managed  however  the  affairs  of  the  eect, 
with  more  discretion  than  our  modern  Unitarians  ;  they 
questioned  not  the  inspiration  of  the  books  which  they 
received  ;  but  they  received  only  one  book,  a  spurious 
copy  of  Bt  Matthew's  gospel,  curtailed  of  the  two  first 
chapters.  You  will  think  it  no  inconsiderable  confir- 
mation of  the  doctrine  in  question,  that  the  sect  which 
first  denied  it  to  palliate  their  infidelity,  found  it  ne- 
cessary to  reject  three  of  the  gospels,  and  to  mutilate 
the  fourth. 

Not  in  words  therefore  and  in  form,  but  with  hearts 
full  of  faith  and  gratitude,  you  will  join  in  the  solemn 


ON  THE  INCARNATION 


321 


service  of  the  day,  and  return  thanks  to  God,  "  who 
gave  his  only  begotten  Son  to  take  our  nature  upon  him, 
and,  as  at  this  time,  to  be  born  of  a  pure  Virgin."  You 
will  always  remember,  that  it  is  the  great  use  of  a 
sound  faith,  that  it  furnishes  the  most  effectual  motives 
to  a  good  life.  You  will  therefore  not  rest  in  the  merit 
of  a  speculative  faith.  You  will  make  it  your  constant 
endeavour,  that  your  lives  may  adorn  your  profession 

that  "  your  light  may  so  shine  before  men,  that  they, 

seeing  your  good  works,  may  glorify  your  Father  which 
is  in  heaven." 


REMARKS 

UPOX 

DR  PRIESTLEY'S 

SECOND  LETTERS 

TO  THE 

ARCHDEACON  OF  ST  ALBAN'S, 

WITH 

PROOFS  OP  CERTAIN  FACTS  ASSERTED  BY  THE 
ARCHDEACON. 


PABT  FIEST. 


REMARKS. 


REMARKS  UPON  PART  L 

sentment  and  virulent  invective ;  carried  with  it,  as  I 
thought,  its  own  confutation  to  unprejudiced  readers  of 
all  descriptions  :  to  the  learned  reader,  by  the  proof 
which  it  furnishes  of  the  author's  incompetency  in  the 
subject ;  to  the  unlearned,  by  the  consciousness,  which 
the  fierceness  of  his  wrath  betrays,  of  a  defect  of  ar- 
gument. 

2.  To  mention  a  few  instances:  it  gave  me  great 
satisfaction  to  perceive,  that  the  whole  confutation  of  the 
proof,  which  1  had  built  upon  the  epistle  of  St  Barna- 
bas, of  the  orthodoxy  of  the  first  Hebrew  Christians,* 
was  to  consist  in  an  insinuation,  that  "  doubts  had  been 
entertained  by  many  learned  men  concerning  the  genu- 
ineness of  that  epistle  ;"f  and  in  an  assertion  of  my  an- 
tagonist's, that  it  is  most  evidently  interpolated  ;  and 
that  the  interpolations  respect  the  very  subject  of  which 
we  treat  :"J  the  genuineness  of  the  epistle,  as  a  work 
of  St  Barnabas  the  apostle,  had  been  expressly  given 
up  by  me  ;  its  age,  being  the  only  circumstance  of  im- 
portance to  my  argument :  for  the  notion,  that  it  is  evi- 
dently interpolated,  particularly  in  what  respects  the 
subject  of  which  we  treat;  the  evidence  by  which  the 
assertion  is  supported,  is  of  that  sort,  which  every  one 
who  engages  in  controversy,  must  rejoice  that  his  ad- 
versary should  condescend  to  employ.  Some  passages 
in  the  Greek  text,  which  allude  to  our  Lord's  divinity, 
are  not  found,  it  seems,  in  the  old  Latin  version ;  others 
relating  to  the  same  subject,  appear  in  the  old  Latin 


•  See  Letter  eighth  in  Reply  to  Dr  Priestley. 

f  Second  Letters  to  the  Archdeacon  of  St  AlbanY  p.  7. 

*  Ibid. 


PART  1.  SECOND  LETTERS. 

version  only,  and  arc  not  found  in  the  Greek  text  :*  that 
both  the  Greek  text  and  Latin  version,  carry  evident 
marks  of  the  injuries  of  time  :  that  defects,  sometimes  of 
a  single  word,  sometimes  of  many  words,  sometimes  of 
whole  periods,  abound  in  both,  is  known  to  every  one 
who  hath  ever  looked  into  the  work  :  it  is  doubtless 
therefore,  a  very  rational  conclusion,  that  whatever  is 
not  found  both  in  the  original,  and  in  the  version,  is  in 
either  an  interpolation.  That  the  hand  of  time  must 
always  have  fallen  upon  the  corresponding  passages  in 
the  two  copies,  may  be  taken  as  a  self-evident  proposi- 
tion !  If  any  assertion  therefore,  of  our  Lord's  divinity, 
occur  in  either  copy,  which  is  not  found  in  both,  the 
Suspicion  must  be  but  too  well  founded,  that  some 
wicked  Athanasian  hath  been  tampering ! 

8.  I  was  well  pleased  to  find,  that  the  two  passages 
which  my  antagonist  hath  produced  from  the  Greek 
text,  as  evident  instances  of  interpolation,  are  not  among 
those  which  1  have  cited.  In  these  two  passages,  the 
divinity  of  our  Lord  is  briefly  alluded  to :  in  every  one 
-of  the  four,  cited  by  me,  it  is  distinctly  asserted,  or 
strongly  implied  :  of  these  four,  two  are  found  with  in- 
considerable  varieties,  both  in  the  Greek  and  in  the 
Latin  ;  the  other  two  in  the  Latin  only  :  but  that  I  lay 
the  chief  stressf  upon  either  of  the  two,  which  are  in  the 
Latin  version  only,  is  a  mere  imagination  of  my  ad- 
versary. 

4.  The  satisfaction,  which  this  confutation  of  my  ar- 
gument from  Barnabas  afforded  me,  was  not  a  little 
heightened,  by  the  manner  in  which  I  am  convicted  of 


*  Second  Letters,  p.  7.  f  Ibid.  p.  8. 


328  REMARKS  UPON 

an  error,  in  the  appeal,  which,  in  my  sixth  letter  to  Dr 
Priestley,  1  made  to  the  authority  of  Grotius,  among 
others,  in  support  of  the  opinion,  which  1  maintain,  of 
the  orthodoxy  of  the  Nazarenes,  in  the  article  of  our 
Lord's  divinity.  Dr  Priestley,  in  his  First  Letters  to 
me,  said,  that  I  was  singular  in  asserting  this :  to 
show  that  I  was  not  singular  in  the  assertion,  (not  to 
prove  the  thing  asserted ;  for  the  proof  of  that  I  build 
entirely  upon  what  is  to  be  found  in  ancient  writers ; 
but  to  disprove  the  pretended  novelty  of  the  assertion,) 
I  alleged  the  authorities  of  Grotius,  Vossius,  Spencer, 
and  Huetius  :  "  having  examined,"  says  my  antagonist, 
in  the  third  of  his  Second  Letters,  "  the  most  respecta* 
ble  of  these  authorities,  viz.  Grotius,  I  find  him  entirely 
failing  you,  and  saying  no  such  thing  as  you  ascribe  to 
him  :"*  then,  to  prove  that  Grotius  fails  me,  and  says 
no  such  thing  as  I  ascribe  to  him,  Dr  Priestley  produces 
a  passage  from  Grotius,  to  which  I  never  meant  to  al- 
lude, and  which  is  indeed  nothing  to  the  purpose,  but 
he  takes  no  notice  of  the,  passage  upon  which  my  asser- 
tion was  built,  and  to  which  the  margin  of  my  publica- 
tion referred  him. 

5.  The  satisfaction,  which  it  gave  me  to  find  myself 
thus  confuted,  was  still  increased,  by  the  retractation  of 
this  confutation  in  my  adversary's  Appendix,  No.  IIL 
A  retractation,  which,  in  effect,  is  little  less  than  a  con- 
fession of  the  fraudulent  trick,  which,  had  not  the  ad- 
vice  of  friends  seasonably  interposed,  it  is  too  evident, 
he  meant  to  put  upon  the  publick — 1  say  upon  the  pub- 
lick  ;  for  upon  me  he  could  not  think  that  it  would 


*  Se«ond  Letters  p.  30. 


PART  I.  SECOND 

pass ;  whatever  may  be  bis  opinion  of  my  learning ; 
he  has,  I  believe,  had  some  experience  of  my  vigilance, 
in  watching  the  movements  of  an  enemy ;  and  he  could 
not  imagine,  that  the  passage  which  he  produces,  would 
pass  with  myself  for  that  which  I  cited.  But  he  has 
heard  perhaps  from  those  who  know  me,  of  the  consti- 
tutional indolence  which  domineers  in  my  disposition ; 
and  under  this  circumstance,  and  the  declaration  which 
1  had  made  of  my  intention  to  give  him  no  reply,  ha 
thought  himself  secure  against  detection. 

6.  I  must  acknowledge  another  gratification  which  I 
received  from  this  same  No.  III.  of  Dr  Priestley's  Ap- 
pendix ;  I  K'rtrntfrom  it,  that  Grotius,  t(  when  he  speaks 
of  the  Nazarenes,  as  holding  the  common  faith  of  other 
Christians,  with  respect  to  Christ ;"  meant  only  that  they 
held  something,  which  was  not  the  common  faith  of 
other  Christians  :*  and  that  Sulpitius  Severus,  when 
he  says  that  "  all  the  Jewish  Christians  till  the  time  of 
Adrian,  held  that  Christ  was  God,  though  they  observ- 
ed the  law  of  Muses,  (Christum  D?um  sub  legis  obser- 
vatinne  credebant.J  is  to  be  considered  as  having  said 
nothing  more,  than  that  almost  all  the  Jews  of  Jerusa- 
lem were  Christians,  though  they  observed  the  law  of 
Moses. "f  Certainly,  the  learned  commentator  and  the 
historian,  are  to  be  so  understood :  for  were  they  to  be  un- 
derstood in  the  plain  meaning  of  their  words,  they  would 
flatly  contradict  Dr  Priestley ;  which  however,  if  they  had 
done,  it  would  have  been  no  great  matter  :  for  any  writer, 
who  may  contradict  Dr  Priestley,  is  little  to  be  regarded. 


330  REMARKS  U*0;N  PART  1. 

7.  Dr  Priestley  has  been  reading  the  Parmenides  !* 
Having  taught  the  Greek  language  several  years  at 
Warrington,  he  conceived  himself  well  qualified  to  en- 
counter  that  profound  book.     The  benefit,  which  he  has 
received  from  the  performance  of  this  knotty  task,  exact- 
ly corresponds  with  my  notion  of  his  abilities  for  the 
undertaking  :  he  has  found  the  whole  treatise  unintelli- 
gible !f  Perhaps  he  has,  'ere  this,  looked  through  the 
Enneads  of  Plotinus,  with  the  like  emolument :  he  must 
therefore  be  well  qualified  to  illustrate  the  history  of  the 
Platonick  doctrines,  in  the  most  mysterious  parts  :  and 
in  the  GREAT  WORK,  with  which  the  press  now  labours, 
his  promise  will,  I  dare  say,  be  fulfilled,  of  teaching 
the  world  many  things  respecting  them,  of  which  his 
antagonist  is  ignorant.     He  can  produce  hundreds  of 
passages  to  prove,  that  the  "  divinity  which  the  ortho- 
dox Christians  ascribed  to  Christ,  was  the  very  same 
principle,  which  constituted  the  wisdom  and  other  pow- 
ers of  God  the  Father  ;  and  he  can  prove,  that  « this 
was  agreeable  to  the  principles  of  those  Platonists,  from 
whom  Philo  and  the  Christian  fathers  derived  their 
opinion.":]:    That  the  second  person  in  the  Platonick 
triad  was,  according  to  the  theology  of  that  school,  the?; 
principle  of  intelligence  in  the  Godhead,  he  will  find 
indeed  not  difficult  to  prove  ;  but,  unless  he  can  show*; 
that  this  principle  of  Divine  intelligence  was  not  suppo- 
sed, by  the  Platonists,  to  have  had  from  all  eternity  a] 
personality  of  its  own,  distinct  from  the  personality  of 
either  of  the  two  other  principles ;  he  will  prove  notbu 


•  Second  Letters,  p.  145. 
t  Ibid.  *  Ibid.  p.  124. 


JPJRT.  I  SECOND  LETTERS.  331 

ing,  but  what  is  already  known  to  every  child  in  Pla- 
tonism. 

8.  The  GREAT  WORK,  will  probably  abound  in  new 
specimens  of  the  proficiency  which  he  has  made  in 
logick,  under  the  tuition  of  the  great  Locke  :  it  was  not 
unpleasant  to  me,  to  find  this  great  logician,  confounding 
being,  substance,  and  substratum:*  that  is,  ignorant  of 
the  distinctions  of  uV»r<*cr/f  (which  seems  to  be  Being  in 
his  language)  wi*  and  uVoKt^ew  :  to  find  him  unapprized 
of  that  great  principle,  without  which  a  logician  will 
handle  his  tools  but  awkwardly,  that  the  genus  cannot 
be  predicated  of  the  specifick  differences!  (a) ;  and, 
from  an  ignorance  of  this  principle,  falling  into  an  error, 
into  which  indeed  greater  men  than  he  have  fallen,  that 
Being  is  the  universal  genus,  under  which  all  other 
genera  rank  as  species. 

9.  These,  and  many  other  glaring  instances  of  unfin- 
ished erudition,  shallow  criticism,  weak  argument,  and 
unjustifiable  art  to  cover  the  weakness,  and  to  supply 
the  want  of  argument,  which  must  strike  every  one,  who 
takes  the  trouble  to  look  through  these  Second  Letters ; 
put  me  quite  at  ease,  with  respect  to  the  judgment,  which 


*  Second  Letters,  p.  138. 

|  " The  former  [being]  is  the  genus,  and  the  latter  [person]   the 

|  species,"  &c.  p.  140. 

(a)  In  the  sixth  of  his  Third  Letters,  sec.  3.  Dr.  Priestley  courageously  encoun- 
|ters  this  principle.  To  proTe  the  fallacy  of  it,  he  says,  "  According  to  it,  since 
n  are  divided  into  WMte»  and  Blacks,  kc.  &c.  it  would  follow,  that  it  cannot 
h  propriety  be  said  of  any  Whites  or  Blacks,  that  they  are  men.'"  A  more 
c'H'ious  instance  of  logical  accuracy  will  not  easily  be  found,  than  this  deduction. 
The  common  genus  of  White  men  and  Black  men,  I  take  to  be  Man,  Tl»c 
specifick  difference  between  them  lies  in  colour.  Of  this  I  apprehend  manhood 
cacnot  be  predicated.  But  how  does  this  lead  to  Dr  Priestley's  inference,  that 
hnacS»x)<i  is  not  prcdicable  of  any  subject  in  which  colour  is  found. 


REMARKS  UPON  PART  L 

the  publick  would  be  apt  to  form  between  nay  antagonist 
and  me ;  and  confirmed  me  in  the  resolution  of  making 
no  reply  to  him,  and  of  troubling  the  publick  no  more 
upon  the  subject,  except  so  far  as  might  be  necessary, 
to  establish  some  facts,  which  he  hath  somewhat  too  pe- 
remptorily denied ;  and  to  vindicate  my  character  from 
aspersions,  which  he  hath  too  inconsiderately  thrown 
out. 

10.  The  matters  of  fact  which  I  mean  to  prove  are 
these. 

J.  Origen's  want  of  veracity  in  disputation. 

11.  The  existence  of  orthodox  Hebrew  Christians  at 
Jerusalem,  after  the  time  of  Adrian. 

III.  The  decline  of  Calvinism,  amounting  almost  to  a 
total  extinction  of  it,  among  the  English  dissenters. 

11.  The  slander,  which  I  mean  to  repel,  is  contain- 
ed in  my  adversary's  insinuation,  that  I  have  spoken 
with  contempt  of  the  doctrines  of  Calvin. 

13.  As  for  the  outcry  which  he  makes  about  my  in- 
tolerance, and  my  bigotry  to  what  he  calls  high-church 
principles,  it  gives  me  rather  pleasure  than  uneasiness* 
1  consider  it,  as  the  vain,  indignant  struggle  of  a  strong 
animal^  which  feels  itself  overcome  ;  the  mere  growling 
of  the  tiger  in  the  toils ;  and  I  disdain  to  answer :  I 
glory  in  my  principles ;  I  am  proud  of  the  abuse,  which 
they  may  draw  upon  me  ;  nor  shall  I  pretend  to  apolo- 
gize for  the  severity  and  warmth  of  my  present  Ian. 
guage,  or  of  any  which  I  may  think  proper  to  employ 
in  the  ensuing  pages.  After  the  avowal  which  Dr 
Priestley  has  made,  in  his  last  publication,*  of  the 


•  Sec  the  Animadversions  on  Dr  White's  Sermons,  annexed  to  Dr  Pri«stlejJ» 
'fli$cfmrs«  upon  the  Importance  of  Free  Inquiry,  p.  78. 


PART  /.  SECOND  LETTERS. 

spirit  iii  which  he  has  drawn  his  polemical  sword  ;  it  i* 
time,  that  on  our  part  also,  the  scabbard,  should  be 
thrown  away. 

13.  Dr  Priestley's  Second  Letters  to  the  Archdeacon 
of  St  Alban's  are,  at  this  instant,  lying  open  before  me, 
at  the  53d  page  :  my  eye  is  attracted  to  a  passage  near 
the  bottom,  distinguished  by  a  mark,  which,  in  the  first 
perusal  of  the  work,  1  had  set  against  it  in  the  margin  ; 
Which  reminds  me,  that  it  is  one  of  those,  in  which  I 
was  the  most  captivated  with  the  justness  of  the  reason- 
ing,  and  the  frankness  of  the  writer's  declarations.     Al- 
though I  have  already  spent  more  time,  than  when  I 
first  took  up  my  pen  I  thought  to  do,  in  culling  th» 
flowers  of  my  adversary's  composition,  I  cannot  resist 
the  temptation  of  stopping  (although  it  delay  for  a  few 
moments  the  business  to  which  1  hasten)  to  pluck  this 
delicious  blossom,  which  1  had  well  nigh  overlooked, 
sensible  how  much  it  will  add  to  the  brilliancy  and  fra- 
grance of  my  posey. 

14.  Bishop  Pearson  alleges,  that  Ignatius,  in   his 
epistles  to  Polycarp,  to  the  Ephesians,  Magnesians, 
and  Philadelphians,  refers  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Ebion* 
ites  as  an  heretical  doctrine  :  these  references,  would 
demolish  Dr  Priestley's  notion,  that  the  Ebionites  were 
not  considered  as  hereticks,  so  early  as  in  the  times  of 
Ignatius  ;  Dr  Priestley  therefore  "  finds  no  such  refer- 
ences," iu  these  epistles,  "  except  perhaps  two  passa- 
ges/"'    Two  clear  references  are  just  as  good  as  two 
thousand  :  how  then  shall  we  dispose  of  these  two  pas- 
sages ?  Very  easily — "  they  may  easily  be  supposed  to 
have  been  altered" — yes  :  suppositions  are  easily  made  ; 
and  for  that  very  reason,  they  are  not  easily  admitted 
by  wavy  men,  without  some  other  recommendation  than 


33$  HEM  ARKS  UPON  PARTI 

the  bare  ease  of  making  them,  joined  to  the  considera- 
tion of  the  service,  which  a  particular  supposition  may 
render  to  a  party- writer,  as  a  crutch  for  a  lame  argu- 
ment. Upon  what  ground  then  may  we  build  this  sup- 
position,  which  is  so  easily  made,  of  an  alteration  in 
two  passages  in  the  epistles  of  Ignatius,  which,  as  they 
now  stand,  contradict  Dr  Priestley  ?  Upon  the  firmest 
ground  imaginable  :  «  when  CORRECTED  by  an  UN  IT  A- 
RIAN,  nothing  is  wanting  to  the  evident  purpose  of  the 
writer" — Corrected  by  an  Unitarian  !  The  Unitarians, 
if  they  are  not  shamefully  belied  by  the  ecclesiastical 
historians,  have  ever  indeed,  been  ready  at  this  business 
of  correction  :  the  Arians  took  the  trouble  to  correct  a 
treatise  of  Hilary  of  Poictou,  in  which,  the  heretical 
confession  of  the  council  of  Ariminum  was  the  subject : 
they  corrected,  and  corrected,  till  the  work  became  a 
novelty  to  its  author.  They,  or  the  Macedonians,  did 
the  same  good  office  for  St  Cyprian's  epistles  ;  and  to 
circulate  their  amended  copies  more  widely,  they  sold 
them  at  Constantinople,  at  a  low  price ;  similar  liberties, 
were  taken  with  the  works  of  the  two  Alexandrians, 
Clemens  and  Dionysius  :  they,  who  thus  corrected,  were 
not  deficient  in  the  kindred  art  of  forging  whole  trea- 
tises, under  the  names  of  the  brightest  luminaries  of  the 
church,  in  which  the  holy  fathers  were  made  to  support 
heritical  doctrines  :  the  holy  Scriptures  were  not  unat- 
tempted,  as  appears  by  the  testimony  of  those,*  who 
lived  at  the  time  when  the  amended  copies  were  extant 
in  the  world  ;  who,  in  proof  of  the  heavy  accusation, 
appeal  to  the  notorious  disagreement  of  different  copies^ 


*  See  Euseb.  Ecc.  Hist.  lib.  T: 


FART  I. 


SECOND  LETTERS. 


335 


which  had  undergone  the  revision  of  different  heresi- 
arcbs.  This  is  indeed,  the  confutation  of  the  Unitarian 
doctrine,  that  both  the  primitive  fathers,  and  the  holy 
Scriptures,  must  be  corrected  iu  every  page,  before  they 
ean  be  brought  to  give  evidence  in  its  favour.  It  is  be- 
cause the  Unitarians  themselves  have  always  understood 
this,  that  they  hare  ever  been  ready  to  apply  the  needful 
corrections,  when  they  thought  the  thing  might  be  done 
without  danger  of  detection  ;  but  the  modern  Coryphceus 
of  the  company,  is,  1  believe,  the  first  who  ever  had 
the  indiscretion  to  avow  the  practice,  and  confess  that  he 
could  not  otherwise  stand  his  ground,  than  by  an  appeal 
to  the  testimony  of  CORRECTED  FATHERS  !  He  is  himself 
indeed  a  master  of  the  art  of  correction :  his  attempt 
upon  a  passage  in  St  John's  first  epistle,  will  never  be 
forgotten.* 

15.  Will  he  dare  to  recriminate?  He  will.— «  The 
orthodox,  he  says,  as  they  are  commonly  called,  have 
tampered  with  the  New  Testament  itself,  having  made 
interpolations  favourable  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity, 
especially  the  famous  passage  concerning  the  thre  that 
lear  record  in  heaven."^  The  great  name  of  NEWTON 
is  brought  up,  to  give  weight  to  the  accusation  :  "  New- 
ton, among  others,  has  clearly  proved,  &c."  and  this  he 
imagines,  I  myself  will  acknowledge :  Dr  Priestley, 
even  before  the  inditing  of  these  Second  Letters,  must 
have  found  himself  deceived  in  so  many  instances,  in 
his  imaginations  about  me  ;  how  I  would  acknowledge, 


*  Sec  the  charge  to  the  clergy  of  the  arohdeacorrry  of  St  Alban's,  I.  sec.  5. 
f  Second  Letters  p.  13. 


REMARKS  UPCXN 

and  how  I  would  recant;  how  my  eyes  would  be  opened, 
by  the  information  which  he  had  to  give  me ;  that  I 
wonder  he  should  venture  to  imagine  any  more,  in  a 
suhject  in  which  he  hath  found  himself  so  liable  to 
error  :  he  imagines,  that  I  must  acknowledge,  that  New- 
ton hath  clearly  proved,  that  the  record  of  the  three  in 
heaven  in  St  John's  first  epistle,  is  an  interpolation, 
made  by  some  of  those,  whom  I  call  the  orthodox. — 
No:  I  acknowledge  no  such  thing:  Suppose  I  were  to 
make  the  first  part  of  the  acknowledgment,  that  the 
passage  is  an  interpolation  ;  what  consequence  would 
bind  me  to  the  second,  that  the  orthodox  have  been  the 
wilful  falsifiers  ?  Is  it  because  their  purpose  might  have 
been  served  by  the  pretended  falsification  ?  Truly,  their 
purpose  had  been  poorly  served  by  it :  it  is  not  agreed, 
among  the  orthodox  themselves,  that  this  text  relates  to 
the  consubstantiality  of  the  three  persons  in  the  God- 
head :  it  is  my  own  opinion,  that  it  does  not :  and  this 
I  take  to  be  the  reason, — that  it  is  so  seldom  alleged  by 
the  ancient  writers  in  proof  of  the  Trinity.  But  why 
must  I  acknowledge,  that  the  passage  is  at  all  an  inter- 
polation? Because  Newton  and  others  have  clearly 
proved  it — to  me,  the  proof  is  not  clear :  were  the  defect 
of  positive  proof  in  favour  of  the  passage  much  greater, 
than  Newton  and  others  have  been  able  to  make  out,  it 
would  still  be  with  me  an  argument  of  its  authenticity, 
that  the  omission  of  it  breaks  the  connexion,  and  wonder- 
fully  heightens  the  obscurity,  of  the  apostle's  discourse. 
Dr  Priestley  perhaps  imagines,  that  I  hold  myself 
bound  to  acknowledge  whatever  Newton  hath  attempt- 
ed to  prove :  in  his  letters  to  me,  and  in  his  animadver- 
sions upon  Dr  White's  celebrated  discourses,  he  is 


¥AHT  I.  SECOND  LETTERS. 

often  pleased  to  boast  of  the  probability*  of  what  he 
knows,  more  than  his  antagonists  ;  and  that  too,  in  sub- 
jects, in  which  he  hath  been  convicted  of  the  greatest 
want  of  knowledge :  I  hope  I  may  say,  without  arro» 
gance,  that  it  is  probable  that  Sir  Isaac  Newton's 
talents  in  demonstration,  are  as  well  known  to  me,  as 
to  Dr  Priestley :  it  is  probable  too,  that  after  the  pains 
which  I  have  taken,  to  examine  the  principles  and  the 
authorities,  on  which  his  ancient  chronology  is  founded; 
I  am  as  well  qualified  as  Dr  Priestley,  to  judge  of  his 
talents  in  other  subjects,  which  are  not  capable  of  de- 
monstration :  now  in  these,  I  scruple  not  to  say,  with  a 
writer  of  our  own  times,  that  the  great  Newton  went 
out  like  a  common  man  ;  for  the  exposition,  which,  to 
complete  his  argument  against  the  record  of  the  three 
in  heaven,  he  gives  of  the  context  of  the  apostle's  dis- 
course, I  hold  it  to  be  a  model  of  that  sort  of  para- 
phrase, by  which  any  given  sense  may  be  affixed  to  auy 
given  words  :  but  that  even  the  external  evidence  of  the 
authenticity  of  the  passage,  is  so  far  less  defective,  than 
Newton  and  others  have  imagined,  will  be  denied,  I 
believe  by  few,  who  have  impartially  considered,  the 
very  able  vindication  of  this  celebrated  text,  which  hath 
lately  been  given  by  Mr  Travis,  in  his  Letters  to  Mr 
Gibbon.  Dr  Priestley  perhaps  hath  not  found  leisure 
to  look  through  that  performance ;  or,  if  he  have,  he 
hath  formed,  I  suppose,  "  no  very  high  opinion  of  the 
author's  acquaintance  with  Christian  antiquity  :?'f  for 


*  Second  Letters,  p.   135,  146,  200,  202.    Animadversions  on  Dr  White,  p 
66,  72. 
t  See  Remarks  on  MrHowes's  discourse, 

43 


REMARKS  UP01*  P.WT  I. 

in  this,  all  who  oppose  the  Socinian  tenets,  are  misera- 
hly  deficient. 

16.  Here  I  close  my  remarks  upon  my  adversary's 
reasoning ;  and  I  now  proceed  to  the  proof  of  my  own 
facts,  and  the  vindication  of  my  own  character. 


PABT8ECG  N 


PROOFS. 


CHAPTER  FIRST. 


Of  Origen9  s  want  of  veracity. — Of  the  Fathers  in  ge- 
neral.— Of  the  passages  in  which  St  Chrysostom  is 
supposed  to  assert,  that  the  apostles  temporized. — A 
specimen  of  correction  by  an  Unitarian. 

THE  first  fact  that  comes  in  question  is,  the  want 
of  veracity  in  disputation,  which  1  impute  to  Origen. 

2.  In  the  second  book  against  Celsus,  near  the  be- 
ginning of  the  book,  Origen  asserts  of  the  Hebrew  Chris, 
tians  of  his  own  times,  without  exception,  that  they  had 
not  abandoned  the  laws  and  customs  of  their  ancestors  ; 
and  that,  for  that  reason  they  were  called  Ebionites. 
Dr  Priestley  sets  a  high  value  upon  this  testimony  of 
Origen,  as  clearly  establishing  his  great  point,  that  the 


BEMARKS  UPON  PART  1L 

Bbionitcs  were  nothing  worse,  than  the  Christiana  of 
the  circumcision :  I  maintain,  that  if  the  truth  of  Ori- 
gen's  assertion  were  admitted,  still  his  testimony  would 
be  less  to  Dr  Priestley's  purpose,  than  he  imagines — it 
would  prove,  indeed,  the  Hebrew  Christian,  and  the 
Ebionite,  to  be  the  same  ;  but  it  would  equally  prove, 
that  the  disbelief  of  our  Lord's  divinity,  was  no  neces- 
sary part  of  the  Ebionsean  doctrine.  But  I  go  further : 
I  deny  the  truth  of  Origen's  assertion  in  both  its  bran- 
ches :  I  deny,  that  it  is  universally  true  of  the  Hebrew 
Christians,  in  his  time,  that  they  had  not  abandoned 
the  Mosaick  law  ;  and  I  deny  that  it  is  true,  that  they 
were  all  called  Ebionites :  1  say,  that  Origen  himself 
knew  better,  than  to  believe  his  own  assertion  ;  and  I 
say,  that  it  was  a  part  of  Origen's  character,  not  to  be 
incapable  of  asserting,  in  argument,  what  he  believed 
not. 

3.  Dr  Priestley  ill  brooks  this  open  attack,  upon  the 
credibility  of  one,  whom  he  considers  as  a  principal 
witness  :  he  defends  Origen,  by  retorting  a  similar  ac- 
cusation upon  me  ;  and,  with  the  utmost  vehemence  of 
indignant  oratory,  he  arraigns  me  at  the  tribunal  of  the 
publick,  as  a  falsifier  of  history,  and  a  defamer  of  the 
character  of  the  dead.*    From  assertions  which  I  have 
not  rashly  made,  it  must  be  something  more  terrible  to 
my  feelings,  than  the  reproaches  of  Dr  Priestley,  loudly 
re-echoed  by  his  whole  party,  that  shall  compel  me  to 
recede. 

4.  I  say>  then,  that  in  the  particular  matter  in  ques- 
tion, Origen  asserted  a  known  falsehood  :  1  say,  in  ge- 


*  Second  Letters,  gee.  Preface,  p.  xviii.  p;  47,  192. 


11.  SECOND  LETTERS. 

neral,  that  a  strict  regard  to  truth,  in  disputation,  was 
not  the  virtue  of  his  character. 

5.  With  respect  to  the  particular  matter  in  question  : 
if  I  prove,  that  Origen  knew  the  falsehood  of  his  own 
assertion  in  the  first  branch  of  it,  in  which  he  avers, 
"  that  the  Hebrew  Christians  in  his  time  had  not  aban- 
doned their  ancient  laws  and  customs  ;"  no  great  stress, 
I  presume,  will  be  laid  upon  the  second,  <4  that  they 
were  all  called  Ebionites  :"  for,  according  to  Origen's 
account  of  the  reason  of  the  name,  (which  yet  I  believe 
not  to  be  the  true  one,)  the  two  branches  of  his  assertion, 
must  stand  or  fall  together. 

9.  It  is  an  inconvenience  which  attends  controversy, 
that  it  obliges  both  the  writer  and  the  reader  to  go 
frequently  over  the  same  ground  :  I  must  here  repeat, 
what  I  observed  in  the  seventh  of  my  letters  to  Dr 
Priestley,  that  it  is  in  answer  to  a  reproach  upon  the 
converted  Jews,  which  Celsus  had  put  in  the  mouth  of 
an  unbelieving  Jew,  that  by  embracing  Christianity, 
they  were  deserters  of  their  ancient  law ;  that  Origen 
asserts,  that  the  Jews  believing  in  Christ  had  not  re- 
nounced their  Judaism.  This  assertion  is  made  at  the 
beginning  of  Origen's  second  book.  Now  at  no  greater 
distance  than  in  the  third  section  of  the  same  book,  the 
good  father  takes  quite  another  ground  to  confute  his 
adversary :  he  insults  over  his  adversary's  ignorance, 
for  not  making  the  distinctions,  which  he  himself,  in  the 
allegation  in  question,  had  confounded.  "  It  is  my  pre- 
sent point,"  says  Origen,  "to  evince  Celsus's  igno- 
rance, who  has  made  a  Jew  say  to  his  country men3  to 
Israelites  believing  in  Christ,  Upon  ivhat  motive  have 
you  deserted  the  laic  of  your  ancestors?  But  how  have 
they  deserted  the  law  of  their  ancestors,  who  reprove 


342  REMARKS  UPON  PART  ft. 

those  that  are  inattentive  to  it,  and  say,  Tett  me  ye 
$c.  ?"*  Then,  after  a  citation  of  certain  texts  from  St 
Paul's  epistles,  in  which  the  apostle  avails  himself  of 
the  authority  of  the  law,  to  enforce  particular  duties ; 
which  texts  make  nothing  either  for  or  against  the  Jew'g 
assertion,  that  the  Christians  of  the  circumcision  had 
abandoned  their  ancient  law  ;  but  prove  only,  that  the 
disuse  of  the  law,  if  it  was  actually  gone  into  disuse, 
could  not  be  deemed  a  dissertion ;  because  it  proceeded 
not  from  any  disregard  to  the  authority  of  the  Lawgiv- 
er :  after  a  citation  of  texts  to  this  purpose,  Origen  pro- 
ceeds  in  this  remarkable  strain.  "  And  how  confused- 
ly does  Celsus's  Jew  speak  upon  this  subject?  when 
he  might  have  said  more  plausibly,  SOME  of  you  have 
relinquished  the  old  customs  upon  pretence  of  exposi- 
tions and  allegories — SOME  again  expounding,  as  you 
call  it,  spiritually,  nevertheless  observe  the  institutions 
of  our  ancestors — but  SOME,  not  admitting  these  exposi- 
tions, are  willing  to  receive  Jesus  as  the  person  foretold 
by  the  prophets,  and  to  observe  the  law  of  Moses  ac- 
cording  to  the  ancient  customs,  as  having  in  the  letter 
the  whole  meaning  of  the  Spirit."f  In  these  words, 
Origen  confesses,  all  that  I  have  alledged  of  him :  he 
confesses,  in  contradiction  to  his  former  assertion,  that 


THV  TX 

.Ttv  mi  TOV  IWKV,  TO.     T<  <a-at6ov7t?  K««x/7re«  Toy  ir«t,{fov  vo/uev  > 
xcu  T*  t£«?.     Ilcnf  <Js  x&l&hfroiTrauri  TOV  ts-tti^tsv  VOJULOV  01  e7nfyu*/7ec  TO/;  fM  autxxo-n  «u/7«, 

KtU  *«>OyT«f.  Xl)*7«  f*Sl  G/  TOV    VO^OV,  &C. 

•J-     _  Ksu  »f  ffuyx.t%y/MvaK  yt  Tetvff  o  <vrttpx.  TU  KiXo-»  Ix&a; 

«r«y,   CTI  TINE2  ^cw   vpotv  KOLlKtxovrturt  TA  «9«,   tf^su 
T1NE2  ft  xeu  furytsptvoi,  «f  rr*^/tMft7-&tt  /ary3w/u*7iJtaf,  »fty  »t7ov  TO. 
TINE2  (Tt,  zJt  SotyxfAtvot,  /SxXkrfii  KM  TOV  IHTXV  <vrx%*£tt<iurQ*i  oet 

TOV    MtK/noc    V«/*Cr    THTtU  KOil*.  Tit,    <Vofl>M     W   &  TH  Mft    t^9vlt(  TVt 


fJIJRT  n.  SECOND  LETTERS, 

he  knew  of  three  sorts  of  Jews  professing  Christian- 
ity— one  sort  adhered  to  the  letter  of  the  Mosaick  law, 
rejecting  all  figurative  interpretations ;  another  sort  ad- 
mitted a  figurative  interpretation,  conforming,  however, 
to  the  letter  of  the  precept ;  but  a  third  sort  (the  first  in 
Origen's  enumeration)  had  relinquished  the  observance 
of  the  literal  precept,  conceiving  it  to  be  of  no  impor- 
tance, in  comparison  of  the  latent  figurative  meaning. 

7.  But  this  is  not  all :  in  the  next  sentence  he  gives 
us  to  understand,  though  I  confess  more  indirectly,  but 
he  gives  us  to  understand,  that  of  these  three  sorts  of 
Hebrews  professing  Christianity,  they  only,  who  had 
laid  aside  the  use  of  the  Mosaick  law,  were  in  his  time 
considered  as  true  Christians :  for  he  mentions  it  as  a 
further  proof  of  the  ignorance  of  Celsus,  pretending,  as 
it  appears  he  did,  to  deep  erudition  upon  all  subjects, 
that  in  his  account  of  the  heresies  of  the  Christian 
church,  he  had  omitted  the  Israelites  believing  in  Jesus 9 
and  not  laying  aside  the  law  of  their  ancestors  :  "  but 
how  should  Celsus,"  he  says,  «  make  clear  distinctions 
upon  this  point ;  who,  in  the  sequel  of  his  work,  men- 
tions impious  heresies  altogether  alienated  from  Christ, 
and  others,  which  have  renounced  the  Creator,  and 
hath  not  noticed  [or  knew  not  of]  Israelites  believing 
in  Jesus,  and  not  relinquishing  the  law  of  their  fa- 
thers ?"*  What  opinion  is  to  be  entertained  of  a  wri- 
ter's veracity,  who,  in  one  page,  asserts  that  the  Hebrews 
professing  Christianity  had  not  renounced  the  Jewish 
law ;  and,  in  the  next  affirms,  that  a  part  of  them  had 


XXtt  y&p  4ttv     *Air»c  TO.  x*7<x  ray  <rsTcy  <r»*ya«*, 

I»3Tf  tfdLvJit   O&t.tfftlUV  tV   Tilt  t£i>(  fftVHfAOV&ff-fy  H.3U   atA/.MV 

' 


REMARKS  UPOtf  PJIPT  If. 

renounced  it,  not  without  an  insinuation,  that  they,  who 
Lad  not,  were  hereticks,  not  true  Christians?  EGO  HUIC 

TEST!,    ETIAMSI    JURATO,    QUI    TAM,    MANIFESTO    FUMOS 
VENDIT,  ME  NON  CREDITURUM  ESSE  CONFIRMO. 

8.  I  flatter  myself,  that  I  have  established  ray  charge 
against  Origen,  with  respect  to  the  particular  fact  iu 
question  :  that  a  strict  regard  to  truth  in  disputation, 
was  not  the  virtue  of  his  character,  I  shall  now  show  by 
another  strange  instance  of  prevarication,  which  occurs 
in  these  same  hooks  against  Celsus.  Celsus,  to  deprive 
the  Christian  cause  of  all  benefit  from  Isaiah's  prophecy 
of  the  Virgin's  conception,  makes  his  Jew  say,  what 
hath  since  been  said  by  many  Jewish  criticks  without 
the  least  foundation,  that  the  Hebrew  word  in  Isaiah 
vii.  1*,  which  is  rendered  by  the  LXX,  a  virgin,  de- 
notes only  a  young  ivoman :  Origen,  in  justification  of 
the  sense  in  which  Christian  interpreters  understand  tha 
passage,  cites*  the  law  against  the  incontinence  of  be- 
trothed virgins,  in  Deut.  xxii.  &3,  24,  the  word  ncVy, 
which  Christians  understand  of  a  virgin  in  Isaiah,  be- 
ing allowed,  as  Origen  will  have  it,  to  denote  a  virgin 
in  this  passage  of  the  law  :  but  in  this  passage  accord- 
ing to  our  modern  Hebrew  text,  the  word  is  not  noty,  but 
rfyru :  Were  it  certain,  that  npty  had  been  the  reading  in 
the  copies  of  the  age  of  Origen,  a  suspicion  might  arise, 
that  the  text  had  been  corrupted  by  the  Jews,  for  the 
purpose  of  depriving  the  Christians  of  one  argument,  in 
vindication  of  their  interpretation  of  Isaiah  ;  but  there  is 
something  so  suspicious,  in  the  manner  of  Origens  ap- 
peal to  this  text,  that  he  is  rather  to  be,  suspected  of 


•  Contra  CeU.  lib.  i.  sec.  34. 


SECOND  LETTERS. 

prevarication,  than  the  synagogue  of  fraud. 

At?/?-  *'  AA^It    W   01  (JLiV  t£X*/4«X»/!<X  ptltlMfOKTl  GTfOC  1 

it\\oi   Se  «/f  THr   reaur,   xt/Ja/,   JH2  $A2I,  xct/  cy  TW 

err  srafOtrv,  &c.  "  The  word  nnVy  which  the  LXX  have 
translated  into  the  word  <sr*fluo<;  [a  virgin],  but  other 
interpreters,  into  the  word  nar/c  [a  young  woman],  is 
put  too,  AS  THEY  BAY,  in  Deuteronomy,  for  a  virgin. V 
What  is  this,  Jls  they  say  ?  Was  it  unknown  to  the 
compiler  of  the  Hexapla,  what  the  reading  of  the 
Hebrew  text,  in  his  own  time  was  ?  If  he  knew  that 
it  was,  what  he  would  have  thought  it  to  be ;  why  does 
lie  seem  to  assert  upon  hearsay  only  ?  Tf  he  knew 
not;  why  did  he  not  inform  himself?  that  he  might 
either  assert,  with  confidence,  what  lie  had  found  upon 
inquiry  to  be  true;  or  not  assert  what  could  not  be 
maintained.  EGO  HUIC  TESTI,  ETIAMSI  JURATO,  QUI 

TAM  MANIFESTO  FUMOS  VENDIT,  ME  NON  CREDITURUM 
ESSE  CONFIRMO. 

9.  So  much  for  Origen's  veracity  in  argument,  so 
unjustly  aspersed  by  rae>  so  completely  vindicated  by 
Dr  Priestley.* 

10.  I  will  here  take  the  liberty  to  remark  upon  the 
early  fathers  in  general,  whose  memories  are  neverthe- 
less to  be  revered,  for  their  learning,  and  the  general 
sanctity  of  their  characters  ;  that,  in  their  popular  dis- 
courses, and  in  argument,  they  were  too  apt  to  sacrifice 
somewhat  of  the  accuracy  of  fact,  to  the  plausibility  of 
their  rhetorick ;  or,  which  is  much  the  same  thing,  they 


•  "I  hare  completely  vindicated  the  character  of  Origeo,  which  fott  have 
endeavoured  to  blot."  Second  Letters,  fcc.  p.  189.  See  a  further  defence  of 
Origen's  veracity,  in  the  first  of  Dr  Priestley's  third  Letters,  and  my  Reply  to  that 
further  defence,  in  the  fifth  of  the  Supplern«ntal  Disquisition*. 

44 


IIBMAWKS  UPON  PART  I& 

were  too  ready  to  adopt  any  notion,  which  might  serve 
a  present  purpose,  without  nicely  examining  its  solidity 
or  its  remote  consequences.  For  this  reason,  the  great 
profit  which  may  arise  from  the  study  of  their  works,  is 
rather  that  we  may  gather  from  them,  what  were  the 
opinions  and  the  practice  of  the  whole  body  of  the 
church,  in  the  times  wherein  they  lived  ;  than,  that  any 
one  of  these  writers  is  safely  te  be  followed  in  all  his 
assertions  :  instances  of  precipitation,  in  advancing  what 
occurred  at  the  moment,  and  served  a  present  purpose, 
may  be  found,  I  believe,  in  the  writings  of  no  less  a 
man  than  St  Chrysostom  :  I  shall  mention  one  instance 
which  occurs  to  me,  which  is  very  remarkable,  though 
perhaps  of  little  consequence.  In  his  homilies  upon 
the  second  epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  Chrysostom  re- 
lates,  that  it  was  not  agreed,  in  his  time,  who  the 
person  might  be,  who  is  described  by  St  Paul  as  the 
« brother  whose  praise  is  in  the  gospel  in  all  the 
churches :"  that  some  thought  St  Luke  was  meant 
under  this  description ;  others  St  Barnabas :  and,  for 
a  reason  which  he  mentions,  he  gives  it  as  his  own 
opinion,  that  St  Barnabas  was  probably  the  person 
intended — but,  in  his  first  homily  upon  the  Acts  of 
the  Apostles,  he  no  less  than  three  times  brings  up 
this  text,  as  an  attestation  of  St  Paul  to  St  Luke's 
merit :  for  no  other  reason,  but  that  this  application  of 
it,  served  the  purpose  of  a  rhetorical  amplification  of 
St  Luke's  praise. 

11.  Upon  this  circumstance,  the  notorious  careless- 
ness  of  the  fathers  in  their  rhetorical  assertions,  I  should 
build  my  reply  to  the  several  passages  which  Dr  Priest, 
ley  hath  produced  from  St  Chrysostom,  to  prove  that  it 
was  allowed  by  St  Chrysostora,  that  the  doctrine  of  the 


TJIRT  U.  SECOND  LETTERS. 

Trinity  had  never  been  openly  taught  by  the  apostles ; 
if  those  passages  appeared  to  me,  in  the  same  light  in 
which  they  appear  to  my  antagonist :  as  for  the  particu- 
lar passage  in  Athanasius,  if  any  Unitarian,  who  reads 
the  entire  passage,  thinks  that  the  Jews  there  mentioned 
were  converted,  not  unbelieving  Jews,  I  must  apply  to 
him,  what  Dr  Priestley  remarks  of  those  whom  1  esteem 
as  orthodox,  that  "  the  minds  of  a  few  individuals  may 
be  so  locked  up,  that  no  keys  we  can  apply  will  be  able 
to  open  them."*  For  St  Chrysostoin,  I  cannot  find 
that  he  says  any  thing,  but  what  I  myself  would  say ; 
that  the  apostles  taught  first  what  was  easiest  to  be 
learned,  and  went  on  to  higher  points,  as  the  minds  of 
their  catechumens  became  able  to  bear  them  :  if  I  could 
allow  that  he  hath  any  where  said,  what  Dr  Priest- 
ley thinks  he  finds  in  his  expressions,  that  the  apostles 
had  been  reserved  and  concealed  upon  an  article  of 
faith ;  I  should  say,  that  it  was  a  thought  that  had 
hastily  occurred  to  him,  as  a  plausible  solution  of  a 
difficulty,  which  deserved  perhaps,  no  very  diligent  dis- 
cussion in  a  popular  assembly;  and  that  he  had  hastily 
let  it  escape  him.  1  am  well  persuaded,  that  any  priest 
in  Chrysostom's  jurisdiction,  who  should  hare  maintain, 
ed  this  extraordinary  proposition,  that  "the  apostles 
had  temporized,  in  delivering  the  fundamentals  of  the 
Christian  faith,"  would  have  met  with  no  very  gentle 
treatment  from  the  pious  Archbishop  of  Constantinople : 
had  the  priest,  in  his  own  vindication,  presumed  to  say; 
"  Holy  father,  if  I  am  in  error,  you  yourself  musfc 
answer  for  it ;  upon  your  authority  I  adopted  the  opin- 


*  Importance  of  Free  Inquiry,  p.  5$. 


REMARKS  UPON  PART  II. 

iou,  which  you  now  condemn  ;  you  have  repeatedly  said 
in  your  commentaries  upon  the  sacred  books,  that  the 
apostles  and  the  evangelists  stood  in  awe  of  the  preju- 
dices of  their  hearers" — St  Chrysostom  would  have  re- 
plied :  "  Faithless  monster !  is  it  thy  stupidity,  or  thy 
baseness,  that  interprets,  as  an  impeachment  of  the 
sincerity  of  the  first  inspired  preachers,  my  encomium 
of  their  wisdom  ?  But  why  should  1  wonder,  that  he 
should  not  scruple  to  slander  his  bishop,  who  spares 
not  the  apostles  and  evangelists !"  Had  the  priest  been 
able  to  prove  against  St  Chrysostom,  that  he  had  in. 
deed  given  countenance  in  his  writings  to  such  an  error, 
the  good  father  would  have  repented  in  sackcloth  and 
ashes. 

12.  As  the  mention  of  Dr  Priestley's  quotations  from 
St  Chrysostom  hath  occurred,  I  must  not  omit  to  do  jus- 
tice to  a  passage,  which  hath  suffered  a  little  in  the 
hands  of  this  emeritus  professor  of  Greek*  in  the  late 
academy  at  "Warrington.  I  speak  of  the  passage  cited 
by  Dr  Priestley,  in  his  Second  Letters  ,  page  91,  from 
the  first  homily  on  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews  :  in  the 
Greek,  as  Dr  Priestley  gives  it,  it  is  rank  nonsense ; 
and  not  very  intelligible,  in  Dr  Priestley's  English  : 
Dr  Priestley,  to  get  it  into  English  at  all,  has  had  re- 
course to  an  emendation — an  "  *  must  be  turned  into  xw 


•  « I          •  .      taught  it  nine  years,  the  last  six  of  them  at  Warrington."     Se- 
cond Letters,  p.  202. 

Ad  summum,  non  Maurus  ernt,  nee  Sarmata,  nee  Thrax, 

Qui  sumpsitpennss,  mediis  sed  natus  ^itheniiy. 

But  "the  elements  of  the  language,  it  seenu,  were  not  taught  there."  [Ibid.] 
The  professor  indeed,  had  the  elements  been  to  be  taoght,  had  been  ill  qualified 
for  hi>  chair1. 


PART.  II.  SECOND  LETTERS. 

or  something  else."  Suppose  «  turned  into  x<u,  what 
\vill  be  the  antecedent  of  the  pronoun  aV7«?  in  the  Greek, 
or  of  himselfm  Dr  Priestley's  English  ?  Had  Dr  Priest- 
ley consulted  any  good  edition  of  St  Chrysostom,  either 
the  Paris  edition  of  1735,  or  the  old  Paris  edition,  of 
Fronto  Ducseus,  or  the  Eton  edition,  he  would  have 

found  that  j  y<x.f  inru  •  Stsc  should    be    «  ya.f  tivw  •  Xf/rtff 

and  that  v  should  keep  its  place :  "  Observe,"  says  St 
Chrysostom,  "  the  apostle's  prudence  in  the  choice  of 
his  expressions — for  he  hath  not  said,  Christ  spake, 
although  he  [i.  e.  Christ]  was  the  person  who  spake ; 
but  because  their  minds  were  weak,  and  they  were  not 
yet  able  to  bear  the  things  concerning  Christ,  he  says, 
God  spake  by  him." 

13.  The  particular  notion,  that  Christ  was  the  Jeho- 
vah of  the  Old  Testament,  the  person  who  conversed 
with  the  patriarchs,  talked  with  Moses  in  the  bush,  dis- 
played his  tremendous  glory  at  Sinai,  and  spake  by  the 
prophets  ;  is  what  St  Chrysostom  thought  the  Hebrews 
not  far  enough  advanced  in  the  theory  of  revelation  to 
bear :  if  he  thought  them  too  weak  to  bear  the  general 
doctrine  of  our  Lord's  DEITY,  his  judgment  would  be  of 
little  weight,  since  St  Paul  thought  otherwise  ;  for,  in 
the  second  verse  of  the  first  chapter  of  this  epistle,  the 
apostle  enters  upon  that  abstruse  subject,  which,  in  the 
first  verse,  according  to  Dr  Priestley's  interpretation  of. 
St  Chrysostom,  he  is  supposed  to  shun ;  in  the  third 
verse,  he  goes  deep  into  the  mystery  ;  and,  in  the  eighth, 
lie  applies  to  Christ  what  the  Psalmist  says  of  God, 
that  "  his  throne  is  forever  and  ever,  the  sceptre  of  his 
kingdom  a  sceptre  of  righteousness  :"  and  the  manner, 
in  which  the  words  of  the  Psalmist  are  introduced,  shows 
that  the  apostle  thought;  that  they,  to  whom  he  wrote^ 


REMARKS  UPON  PART  11 

could  not  but  join  with  him  in  this  application.  Dr 
Priestley,  1  suppose,  thought  it  as  well  to  keep  it  out 
of  the  reader's  sight,  that  St  Chrysostoin,  in  this  very 
passage,  speaks  of  Christ  as  the  Jehovah  of  the  Old 
Testament :  he  thought  it  best  to  keep  the  true  meaning 
t)f  the  passage  out  of  sight ;  and  for  this  reason,  he 
chose  to  take  up  the  corrupt  and  senseless  reading  of 
the  Heidelberg  edition,  (a  bad  copy  of  the  Veronese 
text,  in  a  very  small  part  only,  collated  with  the  Pa- 
latin  and  Augustan  manuscripts,)  and  rejecting  an  emen- 
dation unanimously  received  by  later  editors,  who  took 
the  pains  to  rectify  the  text  by  a  laborious  collation  of 
many  manuscripts ;  to  make  the  best  of  the  passage  for 
himself,  by  correcting  in  the  wrong  place  :  thus  indeed, 
we  have  a  beautiful  specimen  of  an  ancient  father  c0r- 
rected  by  an  Unitarian  ! 

14.  I  must  not  quit  the  subject  of  these  quotations, 
without  observing,  that  the  learned  reader,  in  this  first 
homily  of  St  Chrysostoin  upon  the  epistle  to  the  He- 
brews,  will  find  St  Chrysostom's  own  confutation  of 
the  proof,  which  Dr  Priestley  attempts  to  bring  from 
his  works  ;  that  it  was  a  thing  known  and  admitted  in 
his  time,  that  the  apostles  had  been  silent  upon  the  sub- 
ject of  our  Lord's  divinity ;  and  that  the  orthodox,  to 
account  for  this  acknowledged  fact,  were  reduced  to 
the  necessity  of  supposing,  that  they  temporized.  What 
the  silence  of  the  apostles,  upon  this  subject  was,  may 
be  learned  from  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews  :  what  St 
Chrysostom's  opinion  of  their  temporizing  caution  was, 
may  be  learned  from  his  first  homily  upon  that  epistle  : 
whoever  reads  only  the  two  first  sections  of  that  homi- 
ly, will  perceive,  that  the  prudence,  which  St  Chrysos- 
toui  ascribea  to  the  apostles,  was  a  prudence  in  the 


PART  1L  SECOND  LETTERS, 

manner  of  preaching  mysterious  doctrines,  not  a  dis- 
honest caution  in  dissembling  difficulties  :  bad  lie  ascri- 
bed to  them  any  such  base  art,  the  epistle  to  the  He- 
brews  had  been  his  confutation  :  his  first  homily  on  that 
epistle,  is  the  confutation  of  those,  who,  in  ignorance, 
or  in  art,  would  ascribe  to  him  so  unworthy  a  notion  of 
the  founders  of  our  faith. 


REMARKS  UPON  i\UiT  Ui 


CHAPTER  SECOND. 

Of  the  church  of  JElia,  or  Jerusalem,  after  Adrian. — 
Mosheinfs  narration  confirmed. — Christians  not  in- 
eluded  in  Adrian's  edicts  against  the  Jews. — The 
return  from  Pella,  a  fact  affirmed  by  Epiphanius. — 
Orthodox  Hebrew  Christians  existing  in  the  world 
long  after  the  times  of  Adrian. 

THE  next  fact  that  comes  in  question,  is  the  ex- 
istence of  a  body  of  orthodox  Hebrew  Christians  at 
Jerusalem,  after  the  final  dispersion  of  the  Jews  by 
Adrian. 

2.  In  the  seventh  of  my  letters  to  Dr  Priestley,  I 
stated  briefly,  what  I  take  to  be  the  true  account,  of 
the  changes  which  took  place  in  the  ecclesiastical  state 
of  Palestine,  upon  the  banishment  of  the  Jews  by  Adri- 
an. The  ecclesiastical  history  of  those  times,  is  sa 
very  general  and  imperfect,  that  whoever  attempts  to 
make  out  a  consistent  story,  from  the  ancient  writers 
which  are  come  down  to  us,  will  find  himself  under 
a  necessity,  of  helping  out  their  broken  accounts,  by  his 
own  conjectures.  In  the  general  view  of  the  transac- 
tions of  that  time,  I  agree  almost  entirely  with  Mo- 
sheira ;  who,  in  my  judgment,  hath,  with  great  pene- 
tration, drawn  forth  the  whole  truth ;  or  what  must 
seem  to  us  the  truth,  because  it  carries  the  highest  air 
of  probability,  from  the  obscure  hints,  which  the  histo? 


P.JRT  II.  SECOND  LETTfiBS. 

yian  Sulpitius  furnishes,  connected  with  other  hints, 
which,  though  unobserved  by  Dr  Priestley,  are  to  ba 
found  in  other  writers  of  antiquity:  Dr  Priestley  speaks 
of  a  series  of  facts,*  and  of  many  circumstances,  which, 
he  says,  I  have  added  to  Mosheim's  account,  and  "  must 
know  that  I  added  :"  if  Dr  Priestley  consulted  that 
part  of  Mosheim's  work,  De  Rebus  Christianorum  ante 
Constantinum,  to  which  the  margin  of  my  letters  refer* 
red  him  (but  in  Mosheim,  as  in  Grotius,  it  is  likely  that 
be  turned  to  the  wrong  place),  if  he  opened  Mosheim  in 
the  place  to  which  I  referred,  he  must  know,  that  I 
have  added  no  circumstance  to  Mosheim's  account ;  but 
such  as  every  one  must  add,  in  his  own  imagination, 
who  admits  Mosheim's  representation  of  the  fact  in  its 
principal  parts  :  he  must  know,  that  three  circumstances 
in  particular,  which  he  is  pleased  to  mention  among  my 
additions,  are  affirmed  by  Mosheim  :  the  conflux  of  He* 
brew  Christians  to  JElia ;  the  motive,  which  induced 
the  majority  to  give  up  their  ancient  customs  ;  namely, 
the  desire  of  sharing  in  the  privileges  of  the  ^Eliaa 
colony ;  and  the  retreat  of  those,  who  could  not  bring 
themselves  to  give  their  ancient  customs  up,  to  remote 
corners  of  the  country.f  These  were  Mosheim's  as* 
sertions  before  they  were  mine  :  and  Dr  Priestley  either 
knows  this,  or,  pretending  to  separate  Mosheim's  own, 
account  from  ray  additions,  he  hath  not  taken  the  trouble 
4o  examine  what  is  mine,  and  what  is  Mosheim's. 

3.  It  may  seem,  however,  that  to  convict  my  adver* 
sary  of  the  crime  of  shameful  precipitance,  in  asserting 
what  he  hath  not  taken  the  pains  to  know ;  or  of  the 


*  Second  Letteri,  p.  1?2.  f  Ibid.  p.  39, 


REMARKS  UPON  PJIPT  11 

crime,  of  asserting  the  contrary  of  what  he  knows, 
absolves  not  me  of  the  imputation,  that  I  have  related 
upon  the  authority  of  Mosheim,  what  Mosheim  related 
upon  none  ;*  I  will  therefore  briefly  state,  the  principles 
which  determine  me,  to  abide  by  Mosheim's  account  of 
the  transactions  in  question.  I  take  for  granted,  then, 
these  things. 

I.  A  church  of  Hebrew  Christians,  adhering  to  the 
observance  of  the  Mosaick  law,  subsisted  for  a  time  at 
Jerusalem,  and  for  some  time  at  Pella  ;  from  the  begin- 
ning  of  Christianity,  until  the  final  dispersion  of  the 
Jews  by  Adrian. 

II.  Upon  this  event,  a  Christian  church  arose  at 


ILL  The  church  of  ^Elia,  often,  but  improperly, 
called  the  church  of  Jerusalem,  for  Jerusalem  was  no 
more  ;  the  church  of  JFAm  in  iU  external  form,  that 
is,  in  its  doctrines  and  its  discipline,  was  a  Greek 
church  ;  and  it  was  governed  by  bishops  of  the  uncir- 
cumcision  :  in  this,  my  adversary  and  I  are  agreed  — 
the  point  in  dispute  between  us  is,  of  what  members 
the  church  of  Mlia,  was  composed  :  he  says,  of  converts 
of  Gentile  extraction  ;  I  say,  of  Hebrews  ;  of  the  very 
same  persons,  in  the  greater  part,  who  were  members 
of  the  ancient  Hebrew  church,  at  the  time  when  the 
Jews  were  subdued  by  Adrian.  For  again,  I  take  for 
granted, 

IV.  That  the  observation  of  the  Mosaick  law,  in  the 
primitive  church  of  Jerusalem,  was  a  matter  of  mere 
habit  and  national  prejudice,  not  of  conscience:  A 


•  S«cond  Letters,  p.  192. 


PART  //.  SECOND  LETTERS.  355 

matter  of  conscience  it  could  not  be ;  because  the  decree 
of  the  apostolical  college,  and  the  writings  of  St  Paul, 
must  have  put  every  true  believer's  conscience  at  ease 
upon  the  subject.     St  Paul,  in  all  his  epistles,  main- 
tains the  total  insignificance  of  the  Mosaick  law,  either 
for  Jew  or  Gentile,  after  Christ  had  made  the  great 
atonement ;  and  the  notion  that  St  Paul  could  be  mis- 
taken, in  a  point  which  is  the  principal  subject  of  a 
great  part  of  his  writings,  is  an  impiety,  which  I  cannot 
impute  to  our  holy  brethren,  the  saints  of  the  primitive 
church  of  Jerusalem.*     Again,  I  take  for  granted, 

V.  That  with  good  Christians,  such  as  I  believe  the 
Christians  of  the  primitive  church  of  Jerusalem  to  have 
been ;  motives  of  worldly  interest,  which   would  not 
overcome  conscience,  would  nevertheless;  overcome  mere 
habit. 

VI.  That  the  desire  of  partaking  in  the  privileges  of 
the  /Elian  colony,  from  which  Jews  were  excluded ; 
would  accordingly,  be  a  motive  that  would  prevail  with 
the  Hebrew  Christians  of  Jerusalem,  and  other  parts  of 
Palestine,  to  divest  themselves  of  the  form  of  Judaism, 
by  laying  aside  their  ancient  customs. 

4.  Dr  Priestley  asks  me,  Where,  Sir,  do  you  find  in 
this  passage  (a  passage  of  Sulpitius  Severus  which  he 
cites)  any  promise  of  immunities  to  the  Jewish  Chris- 
tians, if  they  would  forsake  the  law  of  their  fathers  ?"f 
Nowhere,  1  confess,  in  this  passage ;  nor  in  any  other 
passage  of  Sulpitius ;  nor  in  any  passage  of  any  ancient,  I 


*  Br  the  primitive  church  of  Jerusalem,  I  mean  the  Hebrew  church,  before 
Adrian:  the  retreat  to  Pella  was  temporary;  and,  I  am  inclined  to  think  of 
short  tfci  ration  ;  and  the  bishop,  while  he  sat  there^  was  still  willed  the  Bishop  cf 
Jerusalem. 

•cowl  Letters,  p>  4S, 


HEM  ARKS  UPON  PART  U. 

may  add,  nor  of  any  modern  writer — but  the  question, 
implies  a  false  and  fraudulent  representation  of  my  ar- 
gument :  I  never  spake,  1  never  dreamed,  of  any  pro- 
mise of  particular  immunities  to  Jewish  Christians 
tipon  condition  that  they  renounced  the  Mosaick  law  : 
I  spake  only  of  the  general  immunities  of  the  ./Elian 
colony,  of  which  Christians  might,  and  Jews  might  not 
partake.* 

5.  Dr  Priestley  alleges,  that,  "the  historian  (Sulpi- 
tius)  says,  that  the  object  of  Adrian  was  to  overturn 
Christianity  :"f  but  whatever  the  emperor's  dislike  to 
Christianity  might  be,  there  is  little  probability  that, 
upon  this  occasion,  he  would  be  disposed  to  treat  Chris- 
tians with  severity.  The  historian  Sulpitius  nowhere 
says,  that  the  emperor's  edicts  against  the  Jews  extend- 
ed to  Christians;  and  the  historian  Orosius,  says  express* 
]y,  that  to  Christiaus  they  extended  not : }  Was  Orosius 
too  late  a  writer  to  give  evidence  about  these  transac- 
tions ?  The  historian  of  Corruptions  is,  1  believe,  some 


*  Notwithstanding  the  explanation  which  1  have  here  given,  of  what  1  said  in 
the  seventh  of  ray  Letters  in  Reply,  of  the  exclusion  of  Jews,  and  of  Jews  only, 
from  the  privileges  of  the  JElian  colony;  Dr  Priestley,  in  his  Third  Letters,  hai 
the  assurance  to  tell  me,  "  You  say,  that  the  Jews  were  allowed  to  remain  iti  the 
place,  and  enjoy  the  privileges  of  the  JElian  colony,  on  condition  of  their  b«- 
coraing  Christians  :"  as  if  I  had  mentioned  this,  as  an  article  of  capitulation  be- 
tween the  emperor  and  the  Jews : — I  conceive,  that  I  have  expressed  my  mean- 
ing too  plainly  to  be  misapprehended,  by  those  who  choose  to  understand — I 
never  conceived,  I  have  nowhere  said,  "that  Adrian  was  so  well  disposed  to 
Christianity,  as  to  permit  the  Rebellious  Jews  to  remain  in  Jerusalem,  on  condition 
ef  their  embracing  it :"  but  I  suppose,  that  the  emperor  might  distinguish  be- 
tween rebels  and  those  who  had  been  good  subjects.  The  Hebrew  Qhristians 
had  taken  no  part  in  the  rebellion ;  and  yet,  had  they  not  discarded  the  Jewish 
rites,  they  might  hare  been  mistaken  tor  Jews. 

f  Second  Letters,  p.  42. 

$  —  •  pnecepitque  ne  eui  Judseo  introeundi  Hierosolymam  esset  licentia, 
Christiania  tantum  chritate  permissft.  Oros.  Hist*  lib.  7.  cap.  xiii. 


PART  12.  SECOND  LETTERS.  357 

centuries  later ;  His  means  of  information  therefore,  are 
fewer ;  and,  were  he  well  informed,  his  precipitance  in 
assertion,  and  his  talent  of  accommodating  his  story  to 
his  opinions,  should  annihilate  the  credit  of  his  evi- 
dence. The  testimony  of  Orosius,  however  inconsider- 
able, might  of  itself  therefore  outweigh  the  opinion  of 
Dr  Priestley ;  if  a  feather  only,  in  the  one  scale,  be  more 
than  a  counterpoise  for  a  nothing  in  the  other. 

6.  The  testimony  however,  of  Orosius,  is  not  without 
some  indirect  confirmation  from  other  writers ;  and,  what 
is  more,  from  its  consistency  with  other  circumstances  in 
the  history  of  those  times,  with  which  the  assertion  of 
Sulpitius,  that  Adrian  meant  to  wound  Christianity 
through  the  sides  of  Judaism,  will  not  easily  accord. 
Jt  is  a  notorious  fact,  that  Adrian  was  not  unfavourable 
to  the  Christians  :  the  church,  in  his  reign,  obtained  a 
respite  from  persecution  ;  the  fury  of  its  persecutors  was 
restrained,  by  the  imperial  rescripts  to  the  provincial 
governors ;  who  were  directed,  not  to  proceed  against 
the  Christians,  except  by  way  of  regular  trial,  upon  the 
allegation  of  some  certain  crime :  and  when  nothing 
more  was  alleged  than  the  bare  name  of  Christianity, 
to  punish  the  informer  as  a  sycophant :  a  rescript  to  this 
effect,  addressed  to  Miuucius  Fundanus,  proconsul  of 
Asia,  is  preserved  by  Justin  Martyr  in  his  first  apology ; 
and  after  Justin,  by  Eusebius  in  his  history.*  (a)  This 
equitable  disposition  of  the  emperor  towards  the  Chris- 


*  Hist.  Eccl.  lib.  iv.  c.  8,  9. 

(a)  Dr  Priestley,  in  the  second  of  his  Third  Letters,  contends  that  these 
rescripts  meant  nothing  more,  than  that  no  one  should  be  punished  as  a  Chris- 
tian, until  he  was  proved  to  be  such ;  but  this  had  been  no  indulgence ;  for  every 
Christian  might  have  been  proved  to  be  a  Christian,  bj  his  own  conl'esaitm  ;  the 
writers  of  the  times,  bout  of  these  rwcripts  as  indulgence*. 


REMARKS  UPON  PART  IL 

tians,  is  ascribed  by  Eusebius  to  tbe  eloquent  apologies 
of  Quaclratus  and  Aristides,  and  to  the  remonstrances  of 
Serenius  Granianus,  the  predecessor  of  Fundanus  in  the 
Asiatick  Proconsulate.*  When  the  Jewish  war  broke 
out,  reasons  of  state,  immediately  took  place,  which 
would  greatly  heighten  the  effect  of  any  impressions, 
previously  made  upon  the  emperor's  mind  by  the  plead- 
ings of  the  Christian  apologists,  and  the  intercessions  of 
what  friends  they  might  have  among  his  courtiers  :  the 
Christians  of  Palestine  refused  to  take  any  part  in  the 
Jewish  rebellion ;  and  they  smarted  under  the  resent- 
ment of  Barchochebas,  the  leader  of  the  insurgents  :  the 
earliest  testimony  now  extant  of  this  fact  is,  I  believe, 
that  of  Eusebius  in  his  chronicle  :f  but  the  known  im- 
piety of  Barchochebas,  which  renders  it  incredible  that 
the  Christians  should  enlist  under  his  banners,  suffi- 
ciently avouches  the  truth  of  the  chronologer's  assertion  : 
the  thing  therefore,  in  itself,  is  highly  probable,  that  the 
emperor  should  make  the  distinction  which,  Orosius 
says,  he  made  between  the  seditious  Jews  and  the  harm- 
less Christians;  who  had,  indeed,  been  sufferers  by 
their  loyalty.  The  probability  is  still  increased,  by 
certain  circumstances  mentioned  by  historians,  which 
indicate  a  particular  antipathy  in  the  imperial  court,  at 
this  time,  to  the  rites  of  Judaism;  which  the  refractory 
manners  of  the  Jews  might  naturally  excite :  Spartian 
says,  that  a  prohibition  of  circumcision  was  one  of  the 
pretences  of  the  Jewish  rebellion : J  Modestinus  the 


•  Hist.  Eccl.  lib.  iv.  c.  S;  and  in  Chron.  ad.  aim.  MMCXLII. 
t  Ad  annum  MMCXLIX. 

*  Movebant  ei  tempesUte  et  Judei  bellum,  quod  vetabantur  mutilare  genitalia. 
Spartian  in  Adiiano. 


fJIRT  21.  SECOND  LETTERS.  $59 

lawyer,  as  he  is  cited  by  Cassaubon,  alleges  a  rescript 
of  Antoninus,  granting  a  permission  to  the  Jews,  to  cir- 
cumcise their  own  children  :  this  rescript  of  permission, 
as  it  plainly  implies,  that  the  practice  had  been  forbid- 
den by  some  preceding  emperor,  in  some  measure  con- 
firms Spartian's  relation  :  all  these  circumstances  put 
together,  create,  as  the  thing  appears  to  me,  the  highest 
probability  of  the  truth  of  Orosius's  assertion  :  that 
Christians  were  not  included  in  the  edicts  of  Adrian,  by 
which  the  Jews  were  banished  from  Jerusalem  ;  and, 
although  no  author  that  I  know  of,  beside  Orosius,  ex- 
pressly  mentions  the  distinction  ;  the  contrary,  that  the 
Christians  were  included,  is  affirmed  by  no  ancient 
writer  :  the  distinction  indeed,  though  not  mentioned,  is 
clearly  implied  in  Epiphanius's  assertion  ;  that  the  He- 
brew Christians,  after  Adrian's  settlement  of  the  jElian 
colony,  returned  from  Pella,  whither  they  had  retired 
from  the  distresses  of  the  war,  to  ^Elia  ;  for  it  happens, 
that  this  fact,  of  which  Dr  Priestley  does  me  the  honour 
to  make  me  the  inventor,  is  asserted  by  Epiphanius  : 
Epiphanius,  having  related  that  Aquila,  the  same  per- 
son, who  afterwards  made  a  translation  of  the  scriptures 
of  the  Old  Testament  into  Greek,  was  employed  by 
Adrian,  as  overseer  of  the  works  at  ^Elia,  proceeds  in 
these  words  :  i  nnvv  Axuxctf,  S/aywx  iv  TYI  lefva-ax^,  xa;  opuv 
TUY  {taQiflw  TOY  aV»r*xa>r  arfafoc  ry  «•«•«,  xai 
tuyaxa  fyyafo^utrvf  icuriar  xai  axxay  Sav^ua/ar 
'YnOSTPE^ANTES'  AHO  DEAAH2  rti( 

xai  M«oitei1«c*  Sfaut'fyif  i//e\x€v 

VTTO  T«X  Pw^a/wy,  «rj)ot^f)j/aa///o-9>?(7aK  VTTO  dyft\v  era/ltc  01* 
^t?a5-»?ya/  aVo   m  croxewc,    ^exxvcr^f    dfiw   dyro^v^ot 
floe/   ^tlaraj-ai  ytvopirot  eilWHtt  tv   HtM.y  TV  trpoyi-ypoLftpiw 


x 


liEMARKS  UPO^  PART  1L 

'EIT  AN  A2TPE¥  ANTES,  we  t<f»;r,  <nj,ufc;« 
o  TOIVVV  AK^xaf ,  K  T  *.  Kplph.  /)e  Pond 
et  JMens.  Whether  this  return  of  the  Christians  of  Je- 
rusalem from  Pella,  took  place  in  the  interval,  between 
the  end  of  Titus's  war  and  the  commencement  of  Adri- 
an's, or  after  the  end  of  Adrian's,  is  a  matter  of  no 
importance  :  it  is  sufficient  for  my  purpose,  that  these 
returned  Christians  were  residing  at  Jerusalem,  or  more 
properly  at  ^Elia,  at  the  same  time  that  Aquila  was  re- 
siding there  as  overseer  of  the  emperor's  works  :  let  not 
the  publick  therefore  be  abused  by  any  cavils,  which 
ignorance  or  fraud  may  raise,  about  the  chronology  of 
the  return.*  To  this  assertion  of  Epiphanius,  Mosheiin, 


*  Dr  Priestley,  in  the  third  of  his  Third  Letters,  has  treated  this  testimony 
of  Epiphanius  just  as  I  expected,  and  indeed  predicted  :  he  first  endeavours  to 
embarrass  the  argument  with  some  chronological  difficulties ;  and  then  gets  rid  of 
it  in  his  own  peculiar  manner,  by  making  positive  testimony  submit  to  his  owa 
theory.  "What  can  be  more  evident,"  he  says,  "than  that  the  return  of  the 
Jewish  Christians  from  Pella,  mentioned  in  this  passage  by  Epiphanius,  is  that 
return  which  followed  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  by  Titus  ?"  Be  it  BO.  It  i» 
granted  (hen,  that  some  of  the  Jewish  Christians,  who  fled  to  Pella  during  Titus's 
war,  returned  to  Jerusalem  afterwards :  but  the  question  is,  not  at  what  time  the 
Jewish  Christians,  whom  Aquila  found  at  JElia,  had  returned  thither;  but  at 
what  time  he  conversed  with  them :  Epiphanius  says,  he  conversed  with  them  at 
the  time  that  he  was  superintendent  of  Adrian's  works  at  JElia :  at  that  time 
therefore,  there  were  Hebrew  Christians  settled  at  JElia,  or  they  could  not  then 
have  conversed  with  Aquila.  I  maintain,  that  there  is  no  reason  to  believe,  that 
the  Hebrew  Christians  quietly  settled  at  JElia,  before  the  Jewish  rebellion,  were 
included  in  Adrian's  edict  for  the  banishment  of  the  Jews. 

But  Dr  Priestley  remarks  further,  upon  the  authority  of  Cave,  that  Aquila's 
translation  of  the  Old  Testament,  was  made  ia  the  llth  or  12th  year  of  Adrian  : 
then,  since  that  translation  was  undertaken  in  consequence  of  his  apostacy,  and  his 
apostacy  was  some  considerable  time  after  his  conversion ;  Dr  Priestley  infers, 
that  his  conversion  "  was  probably  prior  to  the  reign  of  Adrian ;"  and  so,  the 
whole  story  of  his  intercourse  with  the  Jewish  Christians  at  JElia,  while  he  was 
residing  there  in  the  time  of  Adrian,  is  discredited. 

Perhaps,  to  assign  the  exact  year  of  Aquila's  translation,  would  prove  a  task  of 
no  less  difficulty  to  any  who  should  attempt  it,  than  to  determine  the  d»y  of  the 


JL  SECOND  LETTEB9. 

relating  the  fact,  refers  :  relating  the  same  fact  to  Mo- 
eheiiu,  1  referred*  to  the  very  passage,!  where  Dr 
Priestley,  had  lie  known  what  it  is  to  examine  authori- 
ties before  he  pronounces  upon  them,  might  have  found 
the  reference  to  the  original  author :  the  confidence  with 
which  he  mentions  this,  as  a  fact  forged  hy  me,  is  only 
one  instance,  out  of  a  great  number,  of  his  own  shame- 
less intrepidity  in  assertion. 

7-  Hut,  to  return  from  the  detection  of  Dr  Priestley'* 
fictions,  to  the  historical  discussion.  It  may  seem,  that 
my  six  positions  go  no  further,  than  to  account  for  the 
disuse  of  the  Mosaick  law,  among  the  Christians  of 
Palestine,  upon  the  supposition  that  the  thing  took 
place  ;  and  that  fhey  amount  not  to  a  proof,  that  a  church 
of  Hebrew  Christians,  not  adhering  to  the  rites  of  Juda- 
ism, actually  existed  at  JE*\ia.  :  to  complete  the  proof 
therefore,  1  might  appeal  to  Epiphanius's  assertion,  of 
the  return  of  the  Christians  of  Jerusalem  from  Pella: 
but  I  will  rather  derive  the  proof,  from  a  fact  which  I 


week,  and  the  hour  of  the  day,  when  the  last  word  of  that  work  was  written  :  the 
learned  Cave  had,  as  far  as  t  know,  no  reason  for  fixing  Aquila's  translation  to 
Jie  llth  or  12th  of  Adrian;  hut  that  Epiphanius  says,  that  in  the  12th  year  of 
Adrian,  "  Aquilu  first  became  known  :  but  if  Epiphanius  is  to  be  believed,  Aquila, 
first  became  kuo*-n  by  Adrian's  appointment  of  him  to  so  considerable  an  office, 
as  that  of  overseer  of  the  pub.ick  works  at  JElia.  This  was  in  the  12th  year  of 
Adrian :  his  conversion  to  Christianity  was  some  time  subsequent  to  that  apoint- 
sncnt ;  his  apostacy,  at  some  considerable  distance  of  time,  subsequent  to  his  con- 
version, and  his  translation  of  the  Old  Testament  subsequent  to  his  apostacy  :  so 
that,  the  lime  of  that  translation,  can  be  no  otherwise  defined  than  thus  :  that  it 
certainly  was  not  earlier  than  the  12th  of  Adrian,  and  probably,  was  later  by 
an  interval  of  many  years. 

My  argument  therefore  from  Epiphanius,  stands  its  ground,  and  the  caution 
which  I  gare  the  publick,  not  to  be  abused  by  cavils  which  might  be  raised  about 
the  chronology  of  the  return  from  Pella,  is  but  too  much  justified  by  the  event. 

*  Letters  to  Dr  Priestley,  p.  61. 

t  De,  Rebus  Christianorura  ant«  Constantinura.    S«o.  fl.  »e«.  58.  note*. 

46 


363  REMARKS  UPON  PJIRT  Tl. 

think  more  convincing  than  the  testimony  of  Epipha- 
nius ;  a  tact,  by  which  that  testimony  is  itself  indeed 
confirmed.  I  affirm  then, 

VII.  That  a  body  of  orthodox  Christians  of  the 
Hebrews,  were  actually  existing  in  the  world,  much 
later  than  in  the  time  of  Adrian. 

8.  The  testimony  of  Origen  I  hold  too  cheap,  to  avail 
myself  of  his  triple  division  of  the  Hebrew  Christians, 
to  prove  the  existence  of  the  orthodox  set,  in  his  time  ; 
it  must  be  observed,  however,  that,  were  his  evidence 
at  all  admissible,  his  distinction  would  be  somewhat  a 
stronger  proof  for  me,  than  his  general  assertion,  of 
which  the  generality  is  discredited  by  the  distinction 
afterwards  alleged,  can  be  allowed  to  be  for  my  anta- 
gonist. But  1  give  him  Origen.  I  will  rest  the  credit 
of  my  seventh  position,  upon  the  mention  which  occurs 
in  St  Jerome's  commentary  upon  Isaiah,  of  Hebrew* 
believing  in  Christ  as  distinct  from  the  Nazarenes  :  St 
Jerome  relates  two  different  expositions  of  the  prophe- 
cy, concerning  Zabulon  and  Naphtali,  delivered  in  the 
beginning  of  the  ninth  chapter  of  Isaiah  ;  of  which  ex- 
positions he  ascribes  the  one  to  the  Hebrews  believing 
in  Christ ;  the  other,  to  the  Nazarenes — the  character 
given  of  these  Hebrews,  that  "  they  believed  in  Christ," 
without  any  thing  to  distinguish  their  belief  from  the 
common  belief  of  the  church,  without  any  note  of  its 
error  or  imperfection,  is  a  plain  character  of  complete 
orthodoxy :  for  it  was  neither  the  disposition  of  St  Je- 
rome, nor  the  fashion  of  his  age,  to  miss  any  opportu- 
nity of  proclaiming  the  vices  of  those,  who  were  deemed 
hereticks  ;  unless  upon  occasions,  when  some  rhetorical 
purpose  might  be  answered  by  concealing  them ;  but  no 
rhetorical  purpose  was  to  be  answered,  in  these  notes 


PART  11  SECOND  LETTERS.  363 

upon  Isaiah,  by  a  concealment  of  any  error,  that  had 
been  justly  to  be  imputed  to  these  Hebrews;  nor  was 
St  Jerome  at  all  concerned  to  maintain  the  particular 
exposition  which  he  ascribes  to  them  :  he  had  therefore 
no  inducement  to  conceal  their  errors — but  he  taxes  them 
with  none  :  he  had  therefore  no  harm  to  say  of  them  : 
they  were  orthodox  believers;  and  the  distinction  of  them 
from  the  Nazarenes,  made  by  St  Jerome,  is  a  plain  proof 
that  they  were  not  observers  of  the  Mosaick  law  :  for  al- 
though the  Mosaick  law  was  observed,  in  the  orthodox 
church  of  Jerusalem,  until  the  time  of  the  suppression  of 
the  Jewish  rebellion  by  Adrian ;  it  was  after  his  time,  by 
my  adversary's  own  confession,  confined  to  the  Naza- 
renes and  the  Ebionites  :  if  then  the  Hebrews  believing 
in  Christ,  observed  not  the  Mosaick  law  in  the  time  of 
St  Jerome,  since  the  Mosaick  law  had  been  observed 
by  the  first  race  of  believing  Hebrews  ;  it  follows,  that 
the  practice  of  the  Hebrew  congregations  had  undergone 
a  change,  at  some  time  before  the  age  of  St  Jerome. 
Dr  Priestley  says,  that  great  bodies  of  men  change  not 
their  opinions  soon :  I  say,  they  never  change  their  old 
customs  and  inveterate  habits,  but  from  some  powerful 
motive  :  now,  in  what  period  of  the  history  of  the  church, 
shall  we  find  a  posture  of  affairs,  so  likely  to  induce  the 
Hebrew  Christians  to  forsake  the  Mosaick  law,  as  that 
which  obtained  in  Palestine,  upon  the  final  dispersion 
of  the  Jews  by  Adrian?  If  the  orthodox  Christians  of 
the  Hebrews,  actually  existing  somewhere  in  the  world, 
from  the  reign  of  Adrian  to  the  days  of  St  Jerome, 
were  not  members  of  the  church  of  JElia,  dwelling  at 
y£lia,  and  in  the  adjacent  parts  of  Palestine,  Dr  Priest- 
ley, if  he  be  so  pleased,  may  seek  their  settlement :  it 
is  no  small  difficulty  upon  my  adversary's  side,  that  lie 


HEM  ARKS  UPON  PART  II. 

can  neither  tell  "  what  became  of  the  Christian  Jews," 
upon  his  supposition,  that  with  the  unbelieving  Jews 
they  "  were  driven  out  of  Jerusalem  by  Adrian  ;i?*  nor, 
from  what  quarter  the  Greek  church  of  ^Elia  was  fur- 
Dished  with  its  members. 

9.  Upon  these  foundations,  which  a  stronger  arm 
than  Dr  Priestley's  shall  not  be  able  to  tear  up,  stands 
"  the  church  of  orthodox  Jewish  Christians  at  Jerusa- 
lem :"f  to  which  the  assertors  of  the  catholick  faith  will 
not  scruple  to  appeal,  in  proof  of  the  antiquity  of  their 
doctrine,  whatever  offence  the  very  mention  of  the  or- 
thodox church  of  Jerusalem,  may  give  to  the  enraged 
hseresiarch.J 

10.  He  asks  me,  what  evidence  I  can  bring  that  this 
church,  even  before  the  time  of  Adrian,  was  Trinitari- 
an :  I  brought  evidence  in  my  letters, ||  which  he  hath 
not  been  able  to  refute  :   upon  his  own  principles,  the 
acknowledgment  of  their  orthodoxy  in  later  times,  by 
writers  who  would  have  acknowledged  no  orthodoxy  of 
any  Unitarian  sect,  might  be  a  sufficient  evidence  of 
their  earliest  orthodoxy  :  the  evidence  which  I  have 
brought,  is  nothing  less  than  an  attestation  of  a  member 
of  this  earliest  Hebrew  church,  to  the  belief  of  himself, 
und  his  Hebrew  brethren,  in  our  Lord's  divinity.     But 
"7f  they  were  Nazarenes,  (says  Dr  Priestley,)  Epi- 
phanius   represents    them    as    Unitarian,  when  John 


*  "What  became  of  the  Christian  Jews  who  were  driven  out  of  Jerusalem  by 
Adrian,  does  not  appear."  Second  Letters,  Sec.  p.  45. 

t  "Thus  ends  this  church  of  orthodox  Jewish  Christians  at  Jerusalem,  &c.'' 
Second  Letters,  p.  44. 

\  " —  I  hope,  ( id  populus  curat  scilicet J  I  hope,  however,  we  shall  hear 
no  more  of  them  as  an  evidence  of  the  antiquity  of  the  Trinitarian  doctrine." 
Second  Letters,  p.  45. 

[|  See  particularly  Letter  VIII. 


11  SECOND  LETTERS.  3(55 

wrote."*  I  have  said,  and  I  will  never  cease  to  say, 
that  Epiphariius's  representation  justifies  no  such  opin- 
ion :  but  what  is  Epiphanius's  account  of  the  Naza- 
renes, or,  what  is  any  account  of  the  Nazarenes  to  the 
purpose,  if  the  Hebrews  of  the  church  of  Jerusalem  were 
no  Nazarenes  ?  With  St  Jerome,  the  Hebrews  believing 
in  Christ,  and  the  Nazarenes,  are  different  people. 

N.  B.  Dr  Priestley's  objections  to  the  evidence 
brought  from  St  Jerome,  in  proof  of  my  seventh  po- 
sition, which  he  hath  advanced  in  the  fourth  of  his 
Third  Letters,  are  answered  in  the  sixth  of  the  Sup- 
plemental Disquisitions. 


*  Second  Letters,  p.  45. 


HEM  ARKS  UPON  P.1&T  II- 


CHAPTER  THIRD. 

Of  the  Hebrew  church,  and  its  sects. 

IT  must  strike  the  learned  reader,  that  the  Naza- 
renes  mentioned  by  St  Jerome,  in  the  passage  to  which 
I  now  refer,  of  his  annotations  on  Isaiah ;  must  have 
been  a  different  people  from  those,  mentioned  by  him 
with  such  contempt  in  his  epistle  to  St  Austin,  and  de- 
scribed by  Epiphanius.  The  Nazarenes,  here  men- 
tioned by  St  Jerome,  held  the  scribes  and  pharisees  in 
detestation ;  their  traditions  in  contempt ;  and  the  apostle 
St  Paul  in  high  veneration  :*  and  yet  these  Nazarenes, 
of  the  best  sort,  were  still  a  distinct  set  of  people  from 
the  Hebrews  believing  in  Christ ;  that  is,  from  the  or- 
thodox  church  of  Jerusalem,  divested,  in  consequence  of 
Adrian's  edicts  against  the  Jews,  of  what,  until  the 
time  of  those  edicts,  it  had  retained  of  the  exterior  form 
of  Judaism.  These  remarks  lead,  I  think,  to  a  more 
distinct  notion  of  the  different  sects  of  Hebrews,  pro- 
fessing the  Christian  religion,  than  I  have  met  with  in 
writers  of  ecclesiastical  antiquity  ;  a  much  more  distinct 
one,  I  confess,  than  I  had  myself  formed,  when  I  deli- 
yered  the  Charge  to  the  clergy  of  my  archdeaconry, 
which  gave  the  beginning  to  this  controversy  ;  a  notion 
however,  perfectly  consistent  with  every  thiug  which  1 

*  See  St  Jerome  in  Is.  is.  1,  2,  3,  ct  via.  14,  19—22. 


PART.  II.  SECOND  LETTERS-  867 

then  maintained ;  and  tending  to  establish  the  points,  in 
which  I  differ  from  Dr  Priestley :  as  the  question  ahout 
the  Hebrew  sects  is  of  great  importance,  I  shall  here 
briefly  state  the  sum  of  what  I  have  found  concerning 
them  in  ancient  writers,  and  then  propound  my  own 
conclusions. 

2.  The  Nazarenes  are  not  mentioned  by  Irenseus : 
Irenaeus  says  of  the  Ebionites,*  that  they  acknowledged 
God  for  the  maker  of  the  world  ; — that  they  resembled 
not  Cerinthus  or  Carpocrates,  in  their  opinions  ahout 
Christ;— that  they  used  only  the  Gospel  by  St  Mat- 
thew ; — were   over   curious   in   the   exposition   of  the 
prophets  ; — disowned  the  apostle  Paul,  calling  him  an 
apostate  from  the  law  ; — circumcised,  and  retained  the 
Jewish  laws  and  Jewish  customs.     This  description  of 
the   Ebionites  occurs,  in  that  part  of  the  great  work  of 
Irenes,  which  is  extant  only  in  a  barbarous  Latin  trans- 
lation :  in  the  passage  which  relates  to  their  opinions 
about  Christ,  Cotelerius  suspects  a  corruption  ;  and  fur 
non  similiter,  he  would  read  consimiliter  ;  supposing 
that  Iren.EUS  must  have  affirmed,  that  he  could  not  deny, 
their  resemblance  of  Cerinthus  and  Carpocrates  in  that 
article ;  and  this  indeed  is  agreeable,  as  will  appear,  to 
the  descriptions  given  of  the  Ebionites  by  other  writers. 

3.  Iren^us    in    another   place   insinuates,    that   for 
wine,  in  the  Eucharist,  the  Ebionites  substituted  pure 
water.f 

4.  Tertullian  says,  that  Ebion  made  Jesus  a  mere 
man,  of  the  seed  of  David  only,  that  is,  not  also  the 
JBon  of  God ;  in  some  respect,  higher  in  glory  than  the 


*  Irenseos,  lib.  i.  c.  26. 
T  Ibid.  lib.  v.  c.  2, 


368  REMARKS  UPON  PART  If. 

prophets  :*  in  another  place  f  he  says,  that  Ebion  was 
the  successor  of  Ceriuthus ;  not  agreeing  with  him  in 
every  particular,  inasmuch  as  he  allowed  that  the  world 
was  made  hy  God,  not  by  angels  :  that,  as  a  conse*. 
cjuence  of  Christ's  mere  humanity,  he  maintained  th* 
lasting  obligation  of  the  Mosaick  law ;  because  it  \» 
written,  that  the  disciple  is  not  above  the  master,  nor 
the  servant  above  his  lord  :  Tertullian  says  nothing 
expressly,  about  the  agreement,  or  disagreement  of 
Ebion  and  Cerinthus,  in  their  notions  of  Christ ;  but 
the  impiety  of  maintaining  that  he  was  a  mere  man,  the 
son  of  Joseph,  he  ascribes  to  Carpocrates  and  Cerinthus 
as  well  as  Ebion  ;  which  renders  the  emendation,  pro- 
posed by  Cotelerius,  in  the  Latin  version  of  Irenaeus, 
consimiliter  for  non  similiter,  very  probable  :  especially, 
as  a  further  agreement  of  the  Ebionites  and  Gnosticks, 
in  their  notions  about  Christ,  is  maintained  by  other 
writers.  Tertullian  again,  in  another  place,  having 
mentioned  "  that  St  Paul,  writing  to  the  Galatians,  in- 
veighs  against  the  observers  and  defenders  of  circumci- 
sion and  the  law,"  adds,  <tf  this  was  Ebion's  heresy  :"J 
this,  however,  is  no  argument  that  Ebion  lived  when 
that  epistle  was  written ;  Tertullian  means  only  to  re- 
mark,  that  Ebion's  tenets,  in  this  article,  were  clearly 
confuted  by  St  Paul's  writings.  In  the  same  place,  he 
mentions  the  denial  of  the  resurrection  of  the  body,  by 
Marcion,  Apelles,  and  Yalentinus,  as  an  error  reproved 
in  St  Paul's  first  epistle  to  the  Corinthians  :  but  no  one, 
I  imagine,  would  thence  conclude,  that  Marcion,  Apel- 
les, and  Valentinus,  were  contemporaries  of  the  apostle, 


*  De  carne  Christ),  c.  14.  |  Oe  Prescript.  Hseret.  c.  48. 

Hseret.  c.  S3. 


SECOND  LETTERS. 

5.  Origen,  in  the  second  book  against  Celsus,  seems 
to  comprehend  the  whole  body  of  the  Hebrew  Chris- 
tians under  the  name  of  Ebionites  ;  and  affirms,  that  they 
adhered  to  the  law  of  their  fathers  :*  but  in  another 
place,  where  he  professes  to  describe  the  Christianity  of 
the  Hebrews  with  the  greatest  accuracy,  he  divides  the 
whole  body  into  three  sects  :  the  first,  like  other  Chris- 
tians, entirely  discarded  the  Mosaick  law  ;  the  second, 
retained  the  observation  of  the  law  in  the  letter  of  tha 
precept,  admitting  however  the  same  spiritual  exposi- 
tions of  it,  which  were  set  up  by  those  who  discarded 
it ;  the  third  sort,  not  only  observed  the  law  according 
to  the   letter,  but  rejected  all  spiritual  expositions  of 
it.f 

6.  Eusebius  divides   the  Ebionites   into  two  sorts, 
both  denying  our  Lord's  divinity ;  but  the  better  sort, 
believing  the  miraculous  conception  :J  both  rejected  the 
epistles  of  Ht  Paul,  whom  they  called  an  apostate  from 
the  law  :   they  used  the   Gospel  according  to  the  He- 
brews,  and  held  the  canonical  gospels  in  little  esteem : 
they  kept  both  the  Jewish  Sabbath  and  the  Christian 
Sunday.     Origen  and  Eusebius,  like  Irena&us,  mention 
aot  the  Nazarenes  by  name. 

7.  St  Jerome,  in  his  commentary  upon  Isaiah,  men- 
tions Hebrews  believing  in  Christ  ;||  and,  as  a  distinct 
set  of  people  from  these  believing  Hebrews,  he  men- 
tions  Nazarenes  who  observed  the  law,§  but  despised 
the  traditions  of  the  Pharisees,  thought  highly  of    St 
Paul,*[T  and  held  the  doctrine  of  our  Lord's  divinity : 
for,  by  an  exposition  of  Isaiah  viii.  13,  14,  which  St 


Contra  Cels.  lib.  ii.  sec.  1.  f  Ibid.  3.  t  Hist.  Ecc,  lib.  iii.  o.  27. 

In  Ii.  ix.  1,  2,  3.  §  Ibid,  and  viii,  14, 19—21 .  fl  Ibid. 


REMARKS  UPON  PART  II. 

Jerome  ascribes  to  them,  it  appears  that  they  acknow- 
ledged in  Christ  the  n^*  np>  [the  Lord  God  of  hosts] 
of  the  Old  Testament.  In  his  epistle  to  St  Augustin,* 
St  Jerome  describes  Nazarenes  of  another  sort,  "  who 
believed  in  Christ  the  Son  of  God,  born  of  the  Virgin 
Mary,  in  whom  the  orthodox  believe ;"  but  were,  ne- 
vertheless, so  bigotted  to  the  Mosaick  law,  that  they 
were  rather  to  be  considered  as  a  Jewish  sect  than  a 
Christian.  In  the  same  place,  he  speaks  of  the  Ebion- 
ites  as  a  sect  anathematized  for  their  Judaism,  and 
falsely  pretending  to  be  Christians ;  and  in  his  commen- 
tary upon  St  Matthew  xii.  he  says,  they  acknowledged 
not  St  Paul's  apostolical  commission. 

8.  Epiphanius  describes  the  sect  of  the  Nazarenes, 
as  a  sect  of  people  hardly  to  be  distinguished  from 
Jews ;  he  expresses  a  doubt,  whether  they  acknow- 
ledged our  Lord's  divinity  :  but  the  terms  in  which  his 
doubt  is  expressed,  argue  that  it  was  groundless.!  He 
describes  the  Ebionites  as  resembling  the  Samaritans, 
rather  than  the  Jews ; — as  maintaining  that  Jesus  was 
the  son  of  Mary,  by  her  husband ; — that  the  Christ, 
descending  from  heaven  in  the  figure  of  a  dove,  entered 
into  Jesus  at  his  baptism.  He  says,  that  the  Nazarenes 
and  the  Ebionites,  had  each  a  Hebrew  gospel,  (the  only 
one  which  they  received,)  which  they  called  the  gospel 
by  St  Matthew  ; — that  the  copies  received  by  the  two 
sects  were  different :  compared  with  the  true  gospel 
by  St  Matthew,  which  the  church  receives,  the  Ebio. 
ns&an  copy  was  the  least  entire,  and  the  most  corrupt  : 
he  speaks  of  the  Ebionites,  as  a  sect  which  branched 


*  Hieron.  Op.  torn.  ii.  f.  341.  A.  edit.  Froben. 
-*  Uiurge  to  the  clergy  of  the  archdeaconry  of  St  Alban'a.    I.  sec.  10,  11. 


PART  II.  SECOND  LETTERS. 

off  from  the  Nazarenes,  and  appeared  not  till  after  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem.* 

9.  From  the  testimony  of  an  ancient  writer,  cited  by 
Eusebius,  it  appears,  that  one  Theodofcus,  a  native  of 
Byzantium,  a  tanner  by  trade,  at  the  very  end  of  the 
^second  century,  was  the  first  who  taught  the  mere  hu- 
manity of  Christ,  f     He  preached  at  Rome.     His  doc- 
trine  was  an  extension  of  the  impiety  of  the  first  Ebi- 
onites:  for,  with  them,  the  humanity  of  Christ,  was 
over  at  his  baptism. f     He  was  then  deified  ;  or,  at 
least,  exalted  above  humanity,  by  the  illapse  of  the 
Christ. 

10.  Now,  from  all  this,  I  seem  to  gather,  that  after 
the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  the  Hebrew  church,  if 
wilder  that  name  we  may  comprehend  the  sects  which 
separated  from  it,  was  divided  into  five  different  sets  of 
people. 

I.  St  Jerome's  Hebrews  believing  in  Christ :  these 
were  orthodox  Christians  of  Hebrew  extraction,  who 
had  laid  aside  the  use  of  the  Mosaick  law. —  They  are 
the  same  with  the  first  set,  in  Origen's  threefold  division 
of  the  Hebrew  Christians. 

11.  Nazarenes  of  the  better  sort,  orthodox  in  their 
creed,  though  retaining  the  use  of  the  Mosaick  law : 
as  they  were  admirers  of  St  Paul,  they  could  not  es- 
teem the  law,   generally   necessary  to  salvation.     If 
these  people  were  all  heretical,  I  should  guess  that  it 
was  in  this  single  point,  that  they  received  the  gospel  of 
the  Nazarenes,  instead  of  the  canonical  gospels. 


9  Epiph.  H«er.  30. 

•   Hist.  Ecc.  lib.  v.  c.  28. 

more  upon  this  point;  m  Mr  Howes'*  (ermon, 


REMARKS  UPON  PART  If- 

III.  Nazarenes  of  a  worse  sort,  bigotted  to  the  Jewish 
law,  but  still  orthodox,  for  any  thing  that  appears  to 
the  contrary  in  their  creed  :  these  were  the  proper  Na- 
zarenes, described  under  that  name  by  Epiphanius,  and 
by  St  Jerome  in  his  epistle  to  St  Austin.    These  two 
sects,  the  better  and  the  worse  sort  of  Nazarenes,  make 
the  middle  set  in  Origen's  threefold  division. 

IV.  Ebionites  denying  our  Lord's  divinity,  but  ad- 
mitting the  fact  of  the  miraculous  conception. 

V.  Ebionites  of  a  worse  sort,  denying  the  miraculous 
conception,  but  still  maintaining  an  union  of  Jesus  with 
a  divine  being,  which  commenced  upon  his  baptism. 
These  two  sects,  the  betttr  and  the  worst  sort  of  Ebion- 
ites, make  the  last  set  in  Origen's  threefold  division. 

11.  Thus  we  find  a  regular,  and  no  unnatural  grada- 
tion, from  the  orthodox  Hebrew  Christian  to  the  blas- 
pheming Ebionite.  It  appears,  however,  that  the  im- 
pious degradation  of  the  Redeemer's  nature,  though  it 
took  its  rise  among  the  Hebrew  sects,  was  not  carried 
to  its  height  among  them  :  a  sect  of  proper  Unitarians, 
holding  the  perpetual  undeified  humanity  of  the  Saviour, 
made  its  first  appearance  at  Rome,  and  boasted  for  its 
founder,  Theodotus,  the  apostate  tanner  of  Byzantium, 
if,  indeed,  it  was  not  the  growth  of  still  later  times, 
which  seems  to  be  the  opinion  of  the  learned  Mr 
Howes,  to  whose  judgment  1  am  inclined  to  pay  great 
regapd.  These  two  points,  however,  seem  certain  :  that 
the  Nazarenes,  even  of  the  best  sort,  were  a  different 
people  from  the  Hebrew  brethren  of  the  orthodox  church 
of  Jerusalem  ;  and  that  the  Nazarenes,  even  of  the  worst 
sort,  were  believers  in  the  divinity  of  our  Lord.  In  what 
extent  they  believed  it,  may,  perhaps,  seem  to  some  a 
question  in  some  degree  still  opeu  to  discussion :  at  prc- 


PA11T II.  SECOND  LETTERS.  373 

sent,  I  see  no  reason  to  recede  from  the  opinion,  which, 
with  great  authorities  upon  my  side,  I  have  hitherto 
maintained,  of  their  entire  orthodoxy  upon  that  article; 
if,  upon  that  particular  point,  I  should,  at  any  time 
hereafter,  see  cause  to  think  myself  mistaken,  my  con- 
viction is  not  likely  to  come  from  Dr  Priestley,  but  from 
a  very  different  quarter :  Mr  Howes's  9th  number  is 
just  fallen  into  my  hands ;  that  learned  writer,  I  per- 
ceive,  thinks  that  it  was  but  a  subordinate  divinity, 
which  the  Nazarenes  acknowledged  in  our  Lord ;  for 
bis  opinion,  I  feel  all  the  deference  which  one  scholar 
owes  to  the  sentiments  of  another ;  but  not  without  the 
strongest  prepossessions,  I  confess,  at  present,  in  favour 
of  my  own. 


REMARKS  UPOS  fJtRf  tt. 


CHAPTER  FOURTH, 

Of  the  decline  of  Calvinism.— Of  Conventicles, 

I  NOW  pass  to  the  third  fact,  which  I  have  taken 
upon  me  to  establish  :  the  decline  of  Calvinism,  amount- 
ing almost  to  a  total  extinction  of  it,  among  our  English 
dissenters,  who,  no  long  time  since,  were  generally  Cal- 
vinists. 

2.  This  fact  is  of  no  great  importance  in  our  contro- 
versy ;  as  it  is  hut  very  remotely  connected  with  the 
question,  about  the  opinions  of  the  first  ages.     The  ra- 
pid decline  of  Calvinism  here  in  England,  was  alleged 
by  me  as  an  instance,  in  which  Dr  Priestley's  theortm, 
about  the  rate  of  velocity,  with  which  the  opinions  of 
great  bodies  of  men  change  ;  would  lead,  in  the  practi- 
cal application  of  it,  to  very  erroneous  conclusions.     If 
my  instance  was  ill-chosen,  it  will  not  immediately  be  a 
consequence,  that  Dr  Priestley's  theorem  is  a  false 
principle  for  the  reformation  of  the  history  of  the  primi- 
tive church,  in  defiance  of  the  testimony  of  the  earliest 
writers  extant.     It  would  give  me  great  pleasure  to  find 
myself  in  an  error  with  respect  to  this  fact ;  and  to  see 
reason  to  believe  Dr  Priestley,  in  his  assertion,  that  the 
great  body  of  our  dissenters  at  this  day  are  Calvinists. 
60   many   Calvinists  as  are   among   them,   so  many 
friends  there  are  to  the  Catholick  faith  in  all  its  essen- 
tial branches ;  for  the  peculiarities  of  Calvinism,  affect 


PART  1L  SECOND  LETTERS. 

not  the  essentials  of  Christianity  :  but  I  am  sorry  to 
say,  that  1  must  still  believe,  that  the  genuine  Calvinists 
among  our  modern  dissenters,  are  very  few ;  unless,  in 
a  matter,  which  hath  so  lately  fallen  under  the  cogni- 
zance of  the  British  legislature,  I  could  allow  Dr  Priest- 
ley's assertion,  to  outweigh  the  plain  testimony  of  facts 
of  publick  notoriety. 

3.  If  the  great  body  of  the  dissenters  are,  at  this  day, 
Calvinists ;  upon  what  pretence  was  it,  that  the  dissent- 
ing  ministers,  who,  in  the  years  1772  and  1773,  peti- 
tioned Parliament  to  be  released  from  the  subscriptions, 
to  which  they  were  held  by  the  1st  of  William  and 
Mary,  arrogated  to  themselves  the  title,  of  the  GENERAL 
BODY  of  dissenting  ministers,  of  the  three  denominations 
in  and  about  London  ?  No  true  Calvinisl  could  c<»ncur 
in  that  petition.  For,  although  I  cannot  admit,  that  tha 
articles  of  our  church,  in  the  doctrinal  part,  affirm  the 
strict  tenets  of  Calvinism;  yet  they  are  in  this  part, 
what,  as  I  conceive,  no  true  Calvinist  would  scruple  to 
subscribe ;  and,  with  respect  to  the  great  doctrines  of 
the  Trinity,  the  Incarnation,  Justification,  and  Grace, 
every  genuine  Calvinist,  would  start  at  the  very  thought 
of  being  supposed,  even  tacitly  to  concur  in  a  request, 
to  be  released  from  a  confession  of  his  faith  :  for  none 
better  understands,  than  the  genuine  Calvinist,  the  force 
of  that  sacred  maxim,  "  with  the  heart  man  believeth 
unto  righteousness,  and  \\itk  the  mouth  confession  is 
made  unto  salvation."  Would  Dr  Priestley  insinuate, 
that  his  brethren  of  the  Rational  dissent,  approached 
the  august  assembly  of  the  British  Parliament,  with  a 
petition  founded  upon  false  pretensions  ?  Will  he  say, 
that  they  were,  in  fact,  the  minority  of  the  body,  of 
which  they  called  themselves  the  generality  ?  Will  he 


REMARKS  UPON  PART  U. 

gay,  that  the  Thirteen,*  who  in  the  meeting  of  the  Ge- 
neral Body  at  the  Library,  in  Red-cross  Street,  on 
Wednesday,  December  the  23d,  1773,  divided  against 
the  vote  for  an  application  to  Parliament  to  remove  the 
restraints,  which  the  wisdom  of  our  forefathers,  by  the 
Act  of  Toleration,  had  imposed ;  were  the  representa- 
tives of  a  more  numerous  body,  than  the  Fifty-five  who 
gave  their  suffrages  for  the  motion  :f  who  at  a  subse- 
quent meeting,  suffered  not  the  protest  of  the  thirteen 
orthodox  ministers,  to  be  recorded  in  the  minutes  of  the 
business  of  the  day  ;  and  with  difficulty  permitted  their 
reasons  to  be  read  ?J  A  proceeding,  by  the  way,  which 
clearly  shows,  how  cordially  these  pretended  friends  of 
general  toleration,  would  delight,  were  they  in  power, 
to  tolerate  opinions  which  might  differ  from  their  own  ; 
and  evinces  the  propriety  of  the  prayer,  which  a  sense 
of  such  wrongs,  drew  from  a  member  of  the  orthodox 
minority,  "From  the  power  of  such  pretenders  to  supe- 
rior reason,  may  GOD  and  THE  BRITISH  GOVERNMENT 
ever  defend  the  orthodox  dissenters." ||  These  thir- 
teen, spake  only  the  sentiments  of  every  Calvinist,  when 
they  said,  "  We  believe  the  doctrines  of  the  articles  to 
be  both  true  and  important :  We  dare  not  therefore  con- 
sent, to  be  held  up  to  view  as  those,  who  indulge  any 
doubts  respecting  their  truth,  or  at  all  hesitate  about 


*  See  a  pamphlet  entitled,  «« A  Collection  of  the  several  Papers,   relating  to 
the   Application  made  to  Parliament,  in  1772  and  1773,  by  some  of  the  Protes- 
tant Dissenters,  for  Relief  in  the  matter  of  Subscription,  &c."    London,  printed, 
for  J.  Wilkie,  No.  71,  St  Paul's  Church-yard.  MDCCLXXIIT. 

|  See  Wilkie's  Collection,  No.  IH. 

*  Ibid.  No.  n. 

||  See  « Candid  Thoughts  on  the  late  Application  of  some  Protestant  dissenting 
ministers,  &c.  By  an  Orthodox  dissenter."  London,  printed  for  W»  Goldsmith, 
No.  20,  Paternoiter-Row,  1772. 


SECOND  LETTERS. 

their  importance.  We  consider  them  as  the  basis  of 
eur  hope,  the  source  of  our  comfort,  and  the  most  power- 
ful incentive  to,  a  course  of  sincere,  steadfast,  cheerful 
obedience."*  It  were  injustice  to  these  worthy  men,, 
to  let  pass  any  occasion,  of  mentioning  their  names  with 
the  reverence  which  is  due  to  them.  David  Muire, 
John  Rogers,  Thomas  Towle,  Samuel  Brewer,  Ed- 
ward Hitchin,  Thomas  Oswald,  John  Potts,  John  Trot- 
ter, John  Macgowan,  George  Stephens,  Joseph  Popple- 
well,  Henry  Hunter,  John  Kello ;  these  were  the  vene- 
rable confessors,  who,  on  the  23d  of  December,  177s* 
and  on  the  &7th  of  January  in  the  following  year,  in 
meetings  of  the  General  Body  of  the  three  denomina- 
tions, stood  for  the  faith  once  delivered  to  the  saints. 
"  They  thought  themselves  bound,  they  said,  to  contend 
earnestly  for  it,  against  all  who  should  oppose  it."  For 
this  purpose  they  formed,  as  I  gather  from  the  docu- 
ments of  the  times, f  into  a  distinct  association.  When 
the  petition  of  the  Rationalists  was  laid  before  the  Par- 
liament,  they  were  firm  and  active  in  their  opposition 
to  it ;  considering  the  request  as  little  less  than  a  blow, 
craftily  aimed  at  the  very  vitals  of  the  reformed  religion^ 
and,  indeed,  of  Christianity  itself.  They  presented  a 
cross  petition,^  signed,  as  they  themselves  said,  by  the 
ministers  as  well  as  the  laity,  of  the  most  respectable 
congregations  of  real  Protestant  dissenters  in  town  and 
country :  but,  when  they  wished  to  give  credit  and  auu 
thority  to  their  opposition,  by  boasting  of  their  numbers, 
the  most  that  they  could  say,  of  the  number  of  ministers 


*  Bee  Wilkie's  Colleotion,  No.  U  sec.  3. 
\  M,  No.  HI.  and  IV.       *  Ibid.  No.  V. 


REMAIUtS  UPON  PART  11. 

who  had  signed  the  cross  petition,  was  this :  that  they 
were  "  upwards  of  Fifty."  The  number  of  dissenting 
ministers  in  the  whole  kingdom,  was  reckoned  at  that 
time  to  be  about  3000,  of  which  50  is  just  the  fortieth 
part:  when  Dr  Priestley  therefore  affirms,  that  the 
"  majority  of  the  dissenting  ministers  are  still  Calvin- 
ists," he  must  be  understood  to  use  the  same  rhetorical 
figure,  by  which,  in  the  Postcript  of  his  First  Letters  to 
me,  he  swelled  a  few  periods  of  Clemens  Alexandrinus 
to  the  size  of  a  whole  book.  By  a  computation  formed 
upon  that  instance,  I  concluded  the  proportion  of  the 
Priestleian  to  the  vulgar  whole,  to  be  that  of  i  to 
48;  from  this  new  instance,  it  turns  out  somewhat 
larger. 

4.  Thus,  from  the  evidence  of  publick  facts,  1  hare 
the  mortification  to  find  Dr  Priestley's  sentiments  con- 
futed, and  my  own  confirmed,  concerning  the  present 
state  of  Calvinism  among  the  English  dissenters  :  and, 
however  it  may  now  serve  Dr  Priestley's  purpose,  to 
magnify  the  numbers  of  the  Calvinists ;  his  Rational 
brethren,  in  the  year  177S,  spoke  of  their  own  majority, 
in  terms  which  implied,  that  the  Calvinists  were,  ift 
their  judgment,  a  very  inconsiderable  part  of  the  whole, 
body  of  the  dissenters.     "  It  is  admitted,"  say  the  Ra- 
tionalists, in  the  Case  of  the  Protestant  dissenting  Mi" 
nisters  and  Schoolmasters,  "  that  the  greater  part  of  the 
dissenting  ministers  have  not  complied,  and  cannot  in 
conscience  comply,  with  the  subscription  required  by 
the  Act  of  Toleration  :  the  dissenting  ministers  in  gene, 
ral  are,  consequently,  liable  to  the  penalties  abovemeu- 
tioned."     After  stating  the  relief  which  they  desired  to 
obtain,  they  allege,  that  the  "  generality  of  Protestant 
dissenting  ministers,  together  with  their  people,  are  hap- 


VART  Ji  SECOND  LETTERS. 

pily  united  in  the  object  of  the  present  application."* 
The  petitioning  dissenters,  it  seems,  in  the  year  177^> 
thought  the  Calvinists  so  few  and  inconsiderable,  that 
the  ministers,  who  could  not  in  conscience  comply  with 
the  1st  of  William  and  Mary,  and  were  happily  united 
in  the  object  of  the  application  at  that  time  made  to  Par- 
liament, seemed  to  them  the  generality  of  Protestant 
dissenting  ministers.  These  gentlemen  knew,  it  is  to 
be  presumed,  the  state  of  the  dissent.  They  meant  not 
to  impose  a  lie  upon  the  three  estates  of  the  British  le- 
gislature— for  they  were  «W,  all  honourable  men  !  If 
then  my  notion  of  the  decline  of  Calvinism  is  errone- 
ous, Dr  Priestley  will  at  least  confess,  that  I  am  coun- 
tenanced and  supported  in  my  error,  by  a  very  respecta* 
ble  authority. 

5.  I  am  not  ignorant  indeed,  that  this  authority  was 
treated  with  little  respect  by  the  protesting  Calvinists ; 
who  allowed  no  superiority  of  numbers  on  the  side  of 
the  Rationalists:!  it  was  pretended, that  many  Calvin- 
ists concurred  in  the  petition :  some  in  mere  tenderness 
for  scrupulous  consciences ;  many  more  upon  that  good* 
ly  principle,  the  source  of  all  that  orderly  submission 
to  the  higher  powers,  which  hath  ever  been  so  conspi- 
cuous in  the  Puritans  of  this  country ;  that  even  a  true 
faith,  is  not  to  be  confessed  at  the  requisition  of  the 
magistrate.  I  bear  that  good  will  to  Calvinism,  that  it 
gives  me  real  concern  to  remember,  that  it  hath  ever 
been  disgraced  by  a  connexion  with  such  a  principle ; 
I  am  inclined  however  to  believe,  that  the  Calvinists, 


*  See  Wilkie's  Collection,  No.  I. 

t  Sec  "Candid  Thoughts,  Sic.  by  au  Orthodox  Diwenter,"  MC.  U. 


JlEMAttKS  ii'PON  PART  II. 

who,  upon  puritanical  principles,  concurred  in  the  peti- 
tion of  the  Rationalists,  in  the  year  177&*  were  very 
few ;  and  that  the  orthodox  dissenters  were  deceived, 
in  the  idea  which  they  had  formed,  of  the  numbers  of 
their  own  party.  The  requisition  of  the  magistrate 
is  now  removed,  and  no  pretence  exists  for  a  puri- 
tanical reserve ;  I  would  ask  then,  what  is  now  the 
state  of  the  dissenting  ministry  ?  Are  they  at  this  time 
a  majority?  Are  they  any  considerable  part  of  the 
dissenting  ministers,  who  have  qualified  under  the  1st 
of  William  and  Mary  ?  Every  dissenting  minister  hath 
now  the  alternative  of  qualifying,  either  by  subscri- 
bing the  doctrinal  articles,  or  by  a  declaration,  which, 
by  the  19th  of  his  present  Majesty,  is  accepted  in- 
stead of  subscription :  but  the  Calvinist,  even  of  the 
puritanical  cast,  holds  himself  bound  to  an  open  de- 
claration of  his  faith ;  except  in  that  extraordinary 
case,  when  the  interference  of  the  magistrate,  makes  it 
a  duty  to  disown  his  usurped  authority,  by  refusing 
to  confess  with  the  mouth  what  the  heart  believes : 
every  true  Calvinist  therefore,  will  now  qualify  under 
the  old  Act  of  Toleration  ;  and  if  they  are  but  an  in- 
considerable part  of  the  dissenting  ministry,  who  have 
qualified  in  this  manner,  it  is  but  too  plain,  that  Cal- 
vinism, among  the  dissenters,  is  almost  extinguished. 
Inconsiderable,  however,  as  I  fear  their  numbers  are, 
the  Calvinists,  for  the  soundness  of  their  faith,  are  the 
most  respectable  part  of  our  modern  dissenters ;  and 
though  few,  in  comparison  with  the  general  mixed 
body  of  the  Rationalists,  I  hope  they  are  more  numer- 
ous than  the  proper  Unitarians. 

6.  So  much  for  the  principal  facts  which  1  engaged 
to  establish:   it  may,  perhaps,  be  expected,   that  J 


PART.  //.  SECOND  LETTBKS. 

should  take  some  notice  of  another,  in  which  I  have 
been  charged  with  misrepresentation.    Dr  Priestley,  in 
his  First  Letters  to  me,  expressed  high  resentment,  at 
the  use  which  I  had  made  in  my  Charge,  of  the  word 
conventicle  ;  as  descriptive  of  meetings  in  which  he,  and 
friends  of  his,  preside.     To  inform  myself  how  far  this 
resentment  might  be  well  founded,  aud  for  no  other 
purpose,  1  searched  the  registers  of  certain  courts,  for 
such  an  entry  of  the  house  iu  Essex- Street,  and  for  a 
record  of  such  declarations  on  the  part  of  the  minister, 
as,  by  the  19th  of  his  present  Majesty,  are  requisite  to 
make  a  meeting  upon  the  pretence  of  divine  worship, 
not  a  conventicle  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word  :  I  told 
Dr  Priestley,  that   I  had  found  neither  entry  of  the 
house,  nor  record   of  the  minister's    declaration :    Dr 
Priestley  replies,  that  I  could,  indeed,  find  no  record 
of  declaration ;  for  none  was  ever  made  :    but  that  I 
ought  to  have  found  an  entry  of  the  house  ;  for  the  entry 
was  duly  made.     Now  the  truth  is,  that  I  employed 
the  clerks  at  the  different  offices  to  make  the  search,  for 
which  I  paid  the  accustomed  fee— I  trusted  to  their  re- 
port,  which  I  find  was  not  accurate — I  believe  the  fact 
to  be,  as  Dr  Priestley  states  it :   the  house  is  entered ; 
but  the  minister  hath  never  declared  his  principles,  as 
the  law  requires.     The  defence  of  a  strong  word,  which 
hath  been  taken  personally,  would  be  to  me  the  most 
unpleasant  part  of  the  controversy,  were  it  not  thai  the 
style  of  Dr  Priestley's  Second  Letters,  and  of  some 
other  publications  upon  that  side,  hath  put  an  end  to 
all  ceremony  between  me  and  the  leaders  of  the  Uni- 
tarian party ;  I  therefore  still  insist,  that  all  meetings, 
under  ministers  who  have  not  declared,  whether  the 
place  of  meeting  be  entered  or  be  not  entered;  are  illegal; 


REMARKS  UPON  PART  It 

and  that  the  word  conventicle,  as  it  was  used  by  me  in 
my  Charge,  was  not  misapplied.* 

N.  Ji.  The  preceding  chapter  gave  occasion  to  a 
pamphlet,  entitled,  The  Calvinism  of  the  Protestant 
Dissenter's  asserted:  in  a  Letter  to  the  Archdeacon  of 
St  JMban's.  By  Samuel  Palmer,  Pastor  of  the  Inde- 
pendent Congregation  at  Hackney.  London,  Printed 
for  J.  Buckland,  &c.  1786. 

The  sum  of  Mr  Palmer's  argument,  is  contained, 
I  think,  in  these  three  propositions.  That  of  the  thir- 
teen ministers,  who  signed  the  protest  against  the  re- 
solution for  the  application  to  Parliament,  six  were 
Scotsmen,  true  members  of  the  Kirk,  and  therefore  not 
properly  among  our  English  dissenters  :  that  the  cross 
petition  was  not  presented  by  the  thirteen ;  that  the 
fifty  who  signed  it  were  chiefly  lay- preachers,  not  be- 
longing to  the  body  of  the  London  ministers ;  Metho- 
dists ;  unacquainted  with  the  fundamental  principles  of 
the  Protestant  dissenters.  That  a  great  body  of  Cal- 
vinists  concurred  in  the  application  to  Parliament,  upon 
a  general  principle  of  Liberty,  disliking  any  interference 
of  the  magistrate  in  religious  matters. 

Of  these  three  propositions,  the  two  first  seem  to  mill- 


•  Dr  Priestley,  in  his  Third  Letters,  insists  that  his  own  meeting-house,  and  Me 
Lindsey's,  cannot  be  brought  under  the  denomination  of  conventicles,  merely  be- 
cause they,  who  preach  in  them,  are  not  authorized  by  law.  He  thinks,  "  that  if, 
by  any  accident,  an  unauthorized  dissenting  minister,  like  himself,  should  preach 
in  a  parish  church,  it  would  not  on  that  account  become  a  conventicle"  But 
whatever  he  may  think,  an  assembly  in  a  parish  church  to  hear  Dr  Priestley 
preach,  or  even  to  assist  at  divine  worship,  performed  by  a  priest  of  the  church 
of  England,  otherwise  than  according  to  the  form  prescribed  by  the  Book  of 
Common  Prayer,  would  be  a  tonventicle  /  and  all  persons  resorting  to  it,  would 
be  liable  to  the  penalties  which  th«  laws  denounce,  against  persons  frequenting 
conventicles. 


PART  11.  SECOND  LETTERS. 

tate  strongly  on  my  side,  heightening  the  appearance  at 
least  of  a  paucity  of  Calvinists  among  our  dissenters, 
since  six  of  the  thirteen  who  protested,  and  all  the  fifty 
who  petitioned,  according  to  Mr  Palmer,  were  not 
English  dissenters :  as  for  the  third,  if  the  fact  be  as  Mr 
Palmer  states  it,  1  can  only  lament  that  a  republican 
principle,  should  so  strongly  have  infected  so  respecta- 
ble a  branch  of  the  Christian  church,  as  the  CalviuisU 
are  in  my  estimation.  I  believe  however,  that  the  truth 
is,  and  is  pretty  notorious,  that  Calvinism  is  gone  among 
the  dissenters  of  the  present  times ;  though,  for  what 
reason  I  presume  not  to  say,  the  dissenting  teachers 
dislike  to  be  told  of  its  extinction. 


384*  REMARKS  VP&y  PMTSI. 


CHAPTER  FIFTH, 

Of  the  doctrine  of  Calvin.— Of  Methodists* 

I  NOW  proceed  to  reply  to  Dr  Priestley's  insinua- 
tion, that  I  have  spoken  with  contempt  of  the  doctrines 
of  Calvin^  which  at  the  same  time  he  presumes,  I  really 
believe.*  He  was  in  good  humour  with  me,  when  he 
drew  up  this  concluding  paragraph  of  his  third  letter ; 
for  his  reason  for  presuming  that  I  believe  what,  he  im- 
agines, I  speak  of  with  contempt,  is,  that  he  is  unwil- 
ling "  to  tax  me  with  insincerity."-}- 

2.  If  any  where,  I  seem  to  speak  with  contempt  of 
the  doctrines  of  Calvin,  I  have  certainly  been  unfortu- 
nate in  the  choice  of  my  expressions  ;  it  is  one  thing  not 
to  assent  to  doctrines  in  their  full  extent,  quite  another 
to  despise  them :  I  am  very  sensible,  that  our  articles 
affirm  certain  things,  which  we  hold  in  common  with 
the  Calvinists : — so,  they  affirm  many  things  which  we 
hold  in  common  with  the  Lutherans ;  and  some  things, 
which  we  hold  in  common  with  the  Romanists.  It  can- 
not well  be  otherwise ;  for  as  there  are  certain  princi- 
ples which  are  common  to  all  Protestants,  so  the  essen- 
tial articles  of  faith  are  common  to  all  Christians  :  per* 
haps,  in  points  of  mere  doctrine,  the  language  of  out 

*  Second  Letters,  p.  35.  t  Ibid. 


PART  II.  SECOND  LETTERS,  385 

articles  agrees  more  nearly  with  the  Calvinistick,  than 
with  any  other  Protestant  confession,  except  the  Luthe- 
ran ;  but  I  never  was  aware,  till  Dr  Priestley  informed 
me  of  it,  that  1  am  obliged,  by  my  subscription  to  the 
thirty-nine  articles,  to  believe  every  tenet  that  is  gene- 
rally known  by  the  name  of  Calvinistick:*  and,  till  the 
obligation  is  enforced  upon  me  by  some  higher  authority 
than  his,  I  shall,  in  these  matters,  "  stand  fast  in  my 
liberty  :"  nevertheless,  I  hold  the  memory  of  Calvin  ia 
high  veneration  ;  his  works  have  a  place  in  my  library ; 
and,  in  the  study  of  the  holy  Scriptures,  he  is  one  of 
the  commentators  whom  I  frequently  consult :  I  may 
appeal  to  my  own  congregation  at  Newington,  and  to 
other  congregations  to  which,  by  my  situation,  I  am  oc- 
casionally called  to  preach,  to  witness  for  me,  that  I 
never  mention  the  Calvinistick  divines  without  respect ; 
even  when  I  express,  what  1  often  express,  a  dissent, 
upon  particular  points,  to  their  opinions.  The  respect 
with  which  they  are  mentioned  in  my  Good-Friday  ser- 
mon, in  which  I  asserted  the  doctrines  of  Providence  on 
the  one  hand,  and  of  Free-agency  on  the  other,  is,  per- 
haps in  Dr  Priestley's  own  recollection.  In  the  passage 
to  which  he  alludes,  in  my  seventh  letter  to  himself,  he 
will  find  no  contempt  expressed  of  Calvinists,  or  of  their 
opinions :  the  severity  of  the  reflection  falls  on  those, 
who  have  so  speedily  deserted  a  doctrine  to  which,  for 
a  long  time,  they  were  not  without  bigotry  attached ; 
while  they  not  only  maintained  Calvin's  tenets  without 
exception,  but  seemed  to  think  there  could  be  no  ortho- 


*  Second  Letters  p.  .^ 

49 


38ft  BBMAUKS  UPON  f^RT 1L 

doxy  out  of  Calvinism  :  I  consider  it  as  the  reproach  of 
the  dissenters  of  the  present  day,  that  a  genuine  Calvin- 
ist  is  hardly  to  be  found;  except  in  a  sect,  conspicuous 
only  for  the  encouragement  which  the  leaders  of  it  seem 
to  give  to  a  disorderly  fanaticism.  The  rational  dissen- 
ter, hath  nothing  in  common  with  the  Calvinist,  except 
it  be  an  enmity  to  the  episcopal  establishment  of  this 
country  ;  and  this  he  hath  not  so  much  in  common  with 
the  Calvinistick  churches,  as  with  his  own  ancestors; 
the  factious  Puritans, 

3.  It  was,  perhaps,  an  omission,  that  when  the  scarci- 
ty of  Calvinists  among  the  English  dissenters  was  men. 
tioned,  a  distinct  exception  was  not  made  in  favour  of 
natives  of  Scotland,  formed  into  Calvinistick  congrega- 
tions, under  respectable  pastors  of  their  own  country, 
and  of  the  true  Calvinistick  persuasion,  here  in  London, 
and  perhaps  in  other  parts  of  England  :  but  I  consider 
these  as  no  part  of  our  English  dissenters :  they  are 
members  of  another  national  establishment ;  who,  resi- 
ding here,  may  think  that  a  conformity  with  the  church 
of  England,  might  be  interpreted  as  a  desertion  of  their 
own  communion :  the  rational  dissenter,  may  take  no 
credit  to  himself  for  their  adherence  to  their  old  princi- 
ples ;  nor  are  they  involved  in  the  reproach  of  his  dege. 
neracy. 

4.  While  I  thus  repel  my  adversary's  slanderous  in. 
sinuation  of  contempt,  expressed  by  me  of  Calvin's  doc- 
trines,  the  reflection,  I  doubt  not,  is  arising  in  his  breast, 
and  with  much  secret  satisfaction  he  says  within  him- 
self, "  He  is  making  his  peace,  I  see,  with  the  Calvin- 
ists ;  but  how  will  he  get  over  my  remark,  upon  the  dis- 
respectful language  in  which  he  hag  spoken  of  the  Me- 


9ART  If.  SECOND  LETTERS. 

thodists,  his  brother  churchmen  ?"*  To  the  burden  of 
that  crime,  my  shoulders,  I  trust,  are  not  unequal: 
\vhat  if  I  frame  my  reply  in  terms  which  Dr  Priestley's 
late  publication  furnishes — that  whenever  occasions  shall 
arise,  which  may  make  it  my  duty,  as  a  minister  of  the 
gospel,  to  declare  my  sentiments,  I  shall  not  wait  for 
Dr  Priestley's  leave  to  "  express  my  contempt  of  what 
I  think  to  be  despicable,  and  my  abhorrence  of  what  I 
thiiik  to  be  shocking?"!  The  Methodist,  I  am  sensible, 
professes  much  zeal  for  our  common  faith.  Many  of 
his  follies,  I  am  willing  to  believe,  proceed  more  from 
an  unhappy  peculiarity  of  temperament,  than  from  any 
thing  amiss  in  the  moral  dispositions  of  his  heart ; — let 
him  then  renounce  his  fanatical  attachment  to  self-consti- 
tuted, uncommissioned,  teachers  :  let  him  show  his  faith 
by  his  works ;  not  the  formal  works  of  superstition  and 
hypocrisy,  but  the  true  works  of  everlasting  righteous- 
ness  ;  the  works  of  fair-dealing,  charity,  and  continence : 
let  him  do  this,  and  churchmen  will  turn  to  him,  and 
eall  him  brother. 


Se«*ft4  tatters,  p.  35,  -J-  Importance  of  Free  Inquiry,  p. 


REMARKS  UPON  PART  II 


CHAPTER  SIXTH. 

Of  the  general  spirit  of  Dr  Priestley's  Controversial 
Writings. — Conclusion. 

I  HAVE  replied  more  largely  than  I  thought  to  do, 
to  more  than  is  deserving  of  reply,  in  Dr  Priestley's 
Second  Letters :  but,  as  the  controversy  between  him 
and  the  advocates  of  the  Catholick  faith,  is  now  brought, 
by  his  own  declarations,  to  a  state  resembling  that  of 
a  war,  in  which  no  quarter  is  to  be  given  or  accepted  ; 
I  think  myself  at  liberty  to  strike  at  my  enemy  r  without 
remorse,  in  whatever  quarter  I  may  perceive  an  open- 
ing; and  I  think  myself  called  upon,  by  the  present  situ- 
ation of  the  controversy,  not  to  suppress  the  remarks, 
which  have  spontaneously  arisen  in  my  own  mind,  upon, 
the  perusal  of  his  late  writings.  1  fear  he  is  too  little 
read,  but  by  his  own  party ;  and  it  is  fit,  that  it  should 
be  generally  known  what  spirit  he  is  of. 

S.  He  avows,  indeed,  with  the  greatest  frankness, 
that  the  great  object  of  his  essays  upon  theological  sub- 
jects  is,  to  spread  opinions  among  his  countrymen,  from 
the  press  and  from  his  pulpit,  which  he  iiatters  himself, 
must  end  in  the  total  demolition  of  the  polity  of  his 
country  in  the  ecclesiastical  branch ;  the  only  branch 
against  which  he  thinks  it  prudent,,  as  yet,  to  declare 
his  antipathy.  In  his  Vieieofthe  Principles  and  Con- 
duct of  the  Protestant  Dissenters,  with  respect  to  the 


PART  n.  SECOND  LETTERS. 

Civil  and  Ecclesiastical  Constitution  of  England,  a 
pamphlet  first  published  in  the  year  1769,  after  a  pic- 
ture,  highly  exaggerated  I  hope,  of  certain  abuses  among 
the  clergy,  which  he  refers  to  the  principles  of  our 
hierarchy,  but  which,  so  far  as  they  are  real,  are  easily 
traced  to  very  different  causes ;  he,  in  the  true  spirit 
of  patriotism,  points  out  the  remedy.  His  salutary  ad- 
vice is  conveyed  in  the  form  of  a  prediction.  He  fore- 
tells, that  in  « some  general  convulsion  of  the  state," 
such  as  he  might  hope  our  disputes  with  the  American 
colonies,  which  were  then  visibly  tending  to  an  open 
rupture,  might  in  no  long  time  produce,  "  some  bold 
hand,  secretly  impelled  by  a  vengeful  providence,  shall 
sweep  down  the  whole  together."*  In  later  publica- 
tions, he  discovers  no  aversion  to  be  himself  the  hand 
employed  in  that  vindictive  business ;  although  his  in- 
discretion which  he  avows,  and  which  seems  indeed  to 
be  very  great,  when  the  glorious  prospect  of  state  con- 
vulsions warms  and  elevates  his  patriotick  mind,  should 
render  him,  it  may  be  thought,  unfit  to  have  a  part  in  the 
execution  of  any  project,  in  which  the  success  may  at 
all  depend  on  secresy.  In  the  dedication  of  his  late 
History  of  Corruptions  to  Mr  Lindsey,  he  tells  his 
friend  (what  might  be  fitting  for  an  associate's  ear,  but 
it  is  a  strange  thing  to  be  mentioned  in  publick)  "that 
while  the  attention  of  men  in  power,  is  engrossed  by  the 
difficulties  which  more  immediately  press  upon  them ; 
the  endeavours  of  the  friends  of  reformation  [that  is,  of 
those  concealed  instruments  of  vengeance  on  their  devo- 
ted country],  their  endeavours  in  points  of  doctrine  pass 


*  View  of  the  Principle*,  See,  j>.  E»? 


REMARKS  UPO»  PART  11. 

with  less  notice,  and  operate  without  obstruction."*  In 
his  last  publication,  he  has  thrown  out  many  acute  re- 
marks,  upon  the  efficacy  of  "small  changes  in  the  poli- 
tical state  of  things,  to  overturn  the  best  compacted 
establishments  ;"f  upon  the  certainty,  with  which  the 
exertions  of  himself  and  his  associates  operate,  to  the 
ruin  of  the  ecclesiastical  constitution  ;  upon  the  violence 
with  which,  causes  that  lie  dormant  for  a  time  at  last 
act.  "  We,"  he  says,  "  are,  as  it  were,  laying  gunpow- 
der grain  by  grain,  under  the  old  building  of  error  and 
superstition,  which  a  single  spark  may  hereafter  inflame, 
so  as  to  produce  an  instantaneous  explosion."!  H* 
shows,  with  great  ability,  that  all  measures  of  govern- 
ment,  to  support  the  ecclesiastical  constitution,  will  be 
of  no  avail,  if  once  a  great  majority  of  the  people  can  be 
made  its  enemies. ||  And,  for  this  good  purpose,  he  de- 
claims in  his  conventicle,  to  "  enlighten  the  minds  and 
excite  the  zeal"§  of  the  mechanicks  of  the  populous 
town  of  Birmingham,  with  respect  to  the  doctrines  in 
dispute,  between  himself  and  the  assertors  of  that  faith, 
which  the  church  of  England  holds  in  common  with  the 
first  Christians.  The  avowal  of  these  sentiments  iu 
himself,  of  hostility  to  the  political  constitution  of  his 
country ;  the  attempt,  to  excite  similar  sentiments  in  the 
breasts  of  the  "  commonest  people,"  in  whose  breasts 
they  cannot  be  expected  to  lie  inactive,  quietly  expecting 
the  event  of  literary  discussion ;  such  avowal,  and  such 
attempts  are  more,  I  should  think,  than  can  be  justified 
by  the  right  of  private  judgment  upon  speculative  ques- 


Dedication  of  History  of  Corruptions  p.  vri. 

Importance  of  Free  Inquiry,  p.  39. 

Ibid.  p.  40.       ||  Ibid,  p.  41^-44.       §  Ibid.  p. 


PART  11.  SECOND  LETTERS. 

tions.  Not  that  I  would  insinuate,  that  they,  in  any 
degree,  deserve  the  attention  of  our  governors ;  for  I 
nm  well  persuaded,  that  neither  his  doctrine  nor  his 
principles,  are  gaining  that  ground  among  the  people, 
Which  he  seems  to  imagine.  I  am  inclined  indeed  to 
think,  that  the  advancement  even  of  his  Unitarian  doc- 
trine is  but  slow,  except  in  his  own  head ;  in  which  it 
«eems  to  be  making  hasty  strides.  In  his  good  wishes 
to  the  constitution,  I  think  better  of  many  of  his  Unita- 
rian friends,  than  to  believe  that  they  concur  with  him  : 
and  while  trade  and  manufactures  flourish  at  Birming- 
ham, we  may  safely  trust  to  the  inducements,  which 
every  man  there  will  find  to  mind  his  own  business,  to 
defeat  the  success  of  Dr  Priestley's  endeavours  to  «  en- 
lighten and  excite :"  it  seems  therefore  unnecessary  at 
present,  to  think  of  "  raising  the  dam  or  of  making  it 
stronger" — it  will  be  the  better  policy  of  government,  to 
let  the  brawling  torrent  pass.  The  attempt  to  provoke 
severities  by  audacious  language,  in  order  to  raise  a  cry 
of  persecution,  if  sedition,  making  religion  its  pretence, 
should  meet  with  a  premature  check  from  the  secular 
power,  is  a  stale  trick,  by  which  the  world  is  grown  too 
wise  to  be  taken  in.  If  Dr  Priestley  ever  should  at- 
tempt to  execute,  the  smallest  part  of  what  he  would 
now  be  understood  to  threaten,  it  may  then  indeed  be 
expedient,  that  the  magistrate  should  show  that  he 
beareth  not  the  sword  in  vain  :  but,  whatever  Dr  Priest- 
ley may  affect  to  think,  of  the  intolerance  of  churchmen 
in  general,  and  of  the  Archdeacon  of  St  Alban's  in 
particular,  a  churchman  lives  not  in  the  present  age  so 
weak,  who  would  not  in  policy,  if  not  in  love,  discour- 
age, rather  than  promote,  any  thing  that  might  be  called 


REMARKS  UPON  PART  U.' 

a  persecution  of  the  Unitarian  blasphemy,  in  the  person 
of  Dr  Priestley,  or  of  any  of  his  admirers.  A  church- 
man lives  not,  so  weak  as  not  to  know,  that  persecution 
is  the  hot-bed,  in  which  nonsense  and  impiety  have  ever 
thrived  :  it  is  so  friendly  to  the  growth  of  religion,  that 
it  nourishes  even  the  noxious  weeds,  which  carry  but  a 
resemblance  of  the  true  plant  in  the  external  form.  Let 
us  trust,  therefore,  for  the  present,  as  we  securely  may, 
to  the  trade  of  the  good  town  of  Birmingham,  and  to  the 
\vise  connivance  of  the  magistrate,  (who  watches,  no 
doubt,  while  he  deems  it  politick  to  wink,)  to  nip  Dr 
Priestley's  goodly  projects  in  the  bud  ;  which  nothing 
would  be  so  likely  to  ripen  to  a  dangerous  effect,  as 
constraint  excessively  or  unseasonably  used.  Thanks, 
however,  are  due  to  him,  from  all  lovers  of  their  coun- 
try, for  the  mischief  which  he  wants  not  the  inclination 
to  do,  if  he  could  find  the  means  of  doing  it.  In  grati- 
tude's estimation,  the  will  is  ever  to  be  taken  for  the 
deed. 

8.  In  his  First  Letters  to  me,  and  in  former  publica- 
tions, Dr  Priestley  professed  to  disbelieve  an  inspiration 
of  the  apostles  and  evangelists,  in  any  greater  extent, 
than  might  be  consistent  with  the  liberty  which  he  uses, 
of  criticising  their  reasonings  and  their  narrations.  I 
had  a  hope,  that  denying,  as  he  does,  our  Lord's  divini- 
ty, he  still  admitted,  in  some  figurative  sense,  that  "  all 
the. fullness  of  the  Godhead  dwells  in  him  bodily:"  I 
had  a  hope,  that  he  believed,  at  least,  an  unlimited  in- 
spiration  (since  he  disbelieves  any  nearer  communion 
with  the  Godhead)  of  him  to  whom  "  the  Spirit  was 
not  given  by  measure."  I  perceived,  with  concern,  by 
hi»  late  publication,  that  "  the  plenary  inspiration  of 


fJRT.  //.  SECOND  LETTERS. 

Christ"*  is  to  be  disbelieved,  no  less  than  that  of  the 
apostles :  the  assertion,  indeed,  is  qualified,  by  confi- 
ning it  to  cases,  *•  with  respect  to  which,  the  object 
of  their  mission  did  not  require  inspiration" — the  ob- 
ject of  their  mission  required,  that  the  first  preachers 
of  Christianity  should  be  infallible,  in  whatever  opin- 
ions they  maintained,  either  about  the  nature  of  God, 
or  the  principles  of  his  moral  government;  in  what- 
ever they  taught,  concerning  the  terms  or  the  means  of 
man's  acceptance  and  salvation ;  and  in  the  facts  which 
they  have  related  of  the  Redeemer's  life.  If  in  these 
things  they  were  not  infallible ;  if  an  appeal  lies  from 
their  assertions,  to  any  man's  private  opinions ;  who 
shall  draw  the  line,  where  the  truth  of  their  preaching 
ends,  and  their  error  commences?  If  their  inspiration 
was  complete  upon  these  subjects,  it  was  to  all  in- 
tents and  purposes  plenary :  If  it  gave  them  no  light 
about  the  true  system  of  the  world,  the  circulation 
of  the  blood,  or  the  properties  of  the  Leyden  Phial,  it 
was  not  upon  that  account  defective  as  a  religious  in- 
spiration :  the  distinction,  therefore,  between  a  plenary 
inspiration,  and  an  inspiration  extending  only  to  cases, 
in  which  the  object  of  their  mission  required  it,  is  vain 
and  imaginary :  and  it  is  a  mere  pretence,  to  profess 
a  belief  in  the  one,  when  the  other  is  openly  denied. 

4.  In  his  First  Letters  to  me,  Dr  Priestley  disavow- 
ed his  belief  of  the  inspiration  of  the  apostles  as  writers 
only.f  Our  blessed  Lord  left  no  writings.  When, 
therefore,  the  fullness  of  his  inspiration  is  denied,  the 
denial  must  be  understood  of  his  inspiration  as  an  oral 
teacher  :  Dr  Priestley,  therefore,  must  extend  his  dis- 


*  Importance  of  Free  Inquiry,  p.  35.  f  First  Letters,  p.  132. 

50 


HEMARKS  UPON  PART  II. 

belief  of  the  inspiration  of  the  apostles  to  their  oral  doc- 
trine  ;  unless  he  would  be  guilty  of  the  folly  of  setting 
the  disciple  above  his  Lord. 

5.  It  is   some  time  since  it  was  told  me,  that  an 
admirer  of  Dr  Priestley's  tenets,  in  conversation  with  a 
divine  of  the  church  of  England,  high  in  station  and  in 
learning,  had  maintained,  that  our  dying  Lord's  pro- 
ttise  to  the  thief,  that  he  should  be  with  our  Lord  that 
day  in  Paradise,   was  founded  on  a  mistaken  notion 
of  him  who  gave  it,  about  the  state  of  the  dead :  Dr 
Priestley's  disciples  well  know,  that  the  thief  at  this 
time  is  no.where,  and  will  not  be  in  Paradise  before  the 
resurrection.     The  leader  of  a  party,  is  not  answerable 
for  the  absurdities  of  all  his  followers  :  1  was  unwilling, 
therefore,  to  make  the  conclusion,  that  Dr  Priestley 
himself  ever  would  maintain,  what  he  now  maintains, 
the  fallibility  of  Christ !  I  shudder,  while  1  relate  these 
extravagancies,  though  it  be  only  to  expose  them. 

6.  Dr  Priestley  hath  given  free  scope  to  the  powers 
of  his  eloquence,  upon  the  subject  of  my  pretended  in- 
justice to  illustrious  characters,  living  and  dead  :  if  in- 
justice  may  be  committed,  by  praise  bestowed  where  it 
is  unmerited,  no  less  than  by  censure  injuriously  appli- 
ed, Dr  Priestley  may  find  it  more  difficult  than  I  have 
done,  to  refute  the  accusation.     A  character  now  lives, 
not  without  its  eminence,  nor,  I  hope,  without  its  moral 
worth,  which  Dr  Priestley  seems  to  hold  in  excessive 
admiration,  and  upon  which  he  is  too  apt  to  be  lavish 
of  his  praise.     Few,  who  are  acquainted  with  his  wri- 
tings, will  be  at  a  loss  to  guess  that  the  character  1 
speak  of  is — HIMSELF.     As  the  analyzer  of  clastick 
fluids,  he  will  be*  long  remembered  :  but  he  sometimes 
seems  to  claim  respect  as  a  GOOD  CHRISTIAN,  and  a 
GOOD  SUBJECT.    If,  upon  any  branch  of  Christian 


PART  II.  SECOND  LETTERS. 


399 


duty,  my  conscience  be  at  perfect  ease,  the  precept, 
"  Judge  not,"  is  that  which,  I  trust,  I  have  not  trans- 
gressed :   the  motives  by  which  one  man  is  impelled, 
are,  for  the  most  part,  so  imperfectly  known  to  any 
other,  that  it  seems  to  me  cruel  to  suppose,  that  the  evil 
which  appears  in  men's  actions,  is  always  answered  by 
an  equal  malignity  in  their  minds  :  I  have  ever,  there, 
fore,  held  it  dangerous  and  uncharitable,  to  reason  from 
the  actions  of  men  to  their  principles ;  and,  from  my 
youth  up,  have  been  averse  to  censorious  judgment : 
but  when  men  declare  their  motives  and  their  princi- 
ples, it  were  folly  to  affect  to  judge  them  more  favoura- 
bly than  they  judge  themselves.     I  shall,  therefore,  not 
hesitafe  to  say,  that  after  a  denial  of  our  Lord's  divinity, 
his  pre-existence,  and  the  virtue  of  his  atonement;  after 
a  denial,  at  last,  of  our  Lord's  plenary  inspiration ;  after 
a  declaration  of  implacable  enmity  to  the  constitution 
under  which  he  lives,  under  which  he  enjoys  the  license 
of  saying  what   he  lists,  in  a  degree  in  which  it  never 
was  enjoyed,  by  the  tirst  citizens  of  the  freest  democra- 
cies ;  the  goodness  of  his  Christianity,  ana  his  merit  as 
a  subject,  are  topicks,  upon  which  it  may  be  indiscreet, 
for  the  encomiast  of  Dr  Priestley  to  enlarge. 

7.  For  eighteen  months,  or  more,  it  hath  been  the. 
boast  of  the  Unitarian  party,  that  the  Archdeacon  of 
St  Alban's  hath  been  challenged  to  establish  facts 
which  he  had  averred ;  that  ho  hath  been  insulted  in 
his  character,  as  a  scholar  and  a  man ;  charged  with 
ignorance,  misrepresentation,  defamation  and  calum- 
ny:* and  that  under  all  this,  he  hath  continued  speech- 
less.f  He  hath  at  last  spoken,  in  a  tone,  which,  per- 


*  Second  Utter*,  &c.  Preface,  p.  xviii.  p.  I,  39,  47,   160,    ICI,   163,  208, 
<t  aUbi  piusini.  f  Sec  Animadversions  on  Mr  White,  p.  84, 


fefiiMARKS  UPOtf  PART  1L 

Imps,  will  little  endear  him  to  the  Unitarian  zealots* 
It  matters  not.  The  time  seems  yet  so  distant,  when 
the  train  which  they  are  laying,  may  be  expected  to 
explode,  that  the  danger  is  exceedingly  small,  that 
he  will  ever  be  reduced  to  the  alternative  of  renoun- 
cing his  faith,  or  relinquishing  his  preferments  ;  or,  to 
the  harder  alternative  which  Dr  Priestley  seems  ta 
threaten,*  "  of  a  prison,  with  a  good  conscience,  or 
his  present  emoluments  without  one."  If  those  happy 
times,  of  which  Dr  Priestley  prophecies,  should  over- 
take him  ere  his  course  is  finished,  when  an  Arian  or 
Socinian  parliament  f  shall  undertake  the  blessed  bu- 
siness of  a  second  reformation,  and  depose  archbi- 
shops from  their  thrones  and  archdeacons  from  their 
couches  of  preferment,  he  humbly  hopes,  that  he  may 
be  supplied  with  fortitude  to  act  the  part,  which  may 
not  disgrace  his  present  professions.  The  probabili- 
ty, however,  seems  to  be,  that  ere  those  times  arrive, 
(if  they  arrive  at  all,  which  we  trust  they  will  not,) 
my  antagonist  and  I  shall  both  be  gone,  to  those  un- 
seen abodes,  where  the  din  of  controversy  and  the  din 
of  war,  are  equally  unheard.  There  we  shall  rest 
together,  till  the  last  trumpet  summon  us  to  stand  be- 
fore our  God  and  King.  That  whatever  of  intempe- 
rate wrath  and  carnal  anger,  hath  mixed  itself,  on 
either  side,  with  the  zeal  with  which  we  have  pursu- 
ed our  fierce  contention,  may  then  be  forgiven  to  us 
both,  is  a  prayer  which  I  breathe  from  the  bottom  of 
my  soul ;  and  to  which  my  antagonist,  if  he  hath  any 
part  in  the  spirit  of  a  Christian,  upon  his  bended  knees 
will  say,  AMEN. 

*  Second  Letters,  p.  88.  |  Ibid.  p.  87- 


SUPPLEMENTAL 


DISQUISITIONS 


UPON 


CERTAIN  POINTS 


IN 


DR  PRIESTLEY'S 
SECOND  AND  THIRD  LETTERS 


TO  THE 


ARCHDEACON  OF  ST  ALLAN'S, 


BY 


SAMUEL, 

LORD  BISHOP  OF  ST  DAVID'S. 


DISQUISITIONS. 


DISQUISITION  FIE8T. 

Of  the  phrase  of  coming  in  the  flesh,"  as  used  by  St 
Poli/carp  in  his  epistle  to  the  Philippians. 

DR  PRIESTLEY,  in  the  fifth  of  his  Second  Let- 
ters  to  me,  to  prove  that  the  phrase  of  "  coming  in  the 
flesh"  asserts  nothing  more  than  our  Lord's  manhood, 
without  any  reference  to  a  prior  state  of  existence,  al- 
leges, that  the  phrase  is  so  used  hy  St  Polycarp,  the 
disciple  of  St  John,  in  his  epistle  to  the  Philippians. 
The  passage  in  which  Dr  Priestley  imagines  that  he 
hath  found  this  use  of  the  phrase,  stands  thus  in  Arch- 
bishop Wake's  translation,  from  which  Dr  Priestley 
makes  his  quotation  : 

"  Whosoever  does  not  confess  that  Jesus  Christ  is 
come  in  the  flesh,  he  is  antichrist ;  and  whosoever  does 
not  confess  his  suffering  upon  the  cross,  is  from  the 
Devil ;  and  whosoever  perverts  the  oracles  of  the  Lord 
to  his  own  lusts,  and  says  that  there  shall  be  neither 
any  resurrection  nor  judgment,  he  is  the  first-born  of 
Satan." 

By  an  argument,  the  force  of  which  will,  I  believe, 
be  perceived  by  few  but  his  Unitarian  brethren,  Dr 


DISQUISITIONS*  JDIS:  1' 

Priestley  persuades  himself,  that  the  blessed  martyr,  in 
this  passage,  is  not  describing  three  different  sects,  but 
that  "  he  alludes  to  no  more  than  one  and  the  same 
kind  of  persons,  by  all  the  three  characters,"  i.  e.  by 
the  denial  of  our  Lord's  coming  in  the  flesh,  the  denial 
of  his  sufferings,  and  the  denial  of  the  general  resurrec- 
tion and  the  future  judgment. 

Hence  he  would  infer,  that  the  phrase  of  "  coming  in 
the  flesh"  predicates  the  manhood  of  our  Lord,  and 
nothing  more ;  as  I  conceive  for  this  reason :  (for  he 
hath  not  stated  his  argument  very  clearly.)  The  denial 
of  our  Lord's  coming  in  the  flesh,  must  be  something 
that  might  consist  with  the  denial  of  his  sufferings; 
gince  the,  two  errors  (by  Dr  Priestley's  hypothesis)  were 
found  in  the  same  persons.  They  who  denied  the  re- 
ality of  our  Lord's  sufferings,  denied  his  manhood;  and 
in  that  sense  they  might,  and  they  did,  deny  his  coming 
in  the  flesh :  but  his  divinity  they  denied  not;  on  th« 
contrary,  they  strenuously  asserted  a  nature  in  him, 
superior  at  least,  to  the  human.  Any  allusion,  there- 
fore, which  may  be  supposed  in  the  phrase  of  his  "com- 
ing in  the  flesh,"  to  an  original  nature  in  him  more 
than  human,  they  denied  not.  His  manhood  therefore, 
which  is  all  that  they  who  are  charged  with  a  denial 
of  his  "coming  in  the  flesh"  denied,  is  all  that  the 
phrase  imports. 

This  is  the  very  most  that  I  can  make  of  my  adver- 
sary's argument :  and  in  this  state  of  it,  (if  I  have  mis- 
represented it,  I  most  seriously  declare  it  is  without 
design)  I  confess  myself  too  dull  to  perceive  the  con- 
nexion of  the  premises  and  the  conclusion.  .  We  of  tlie 
orthodox  persuasion,  conceive  that  the  phrase  of  "  com- 
ing in  the  flesh"  expresses  the  INCARNATION  ;  that  is  to 


D1S.  f.  DISQUISITIONS. 

say,  it  contains  this  complex  proposition,  that  a  Being 
originally  divine  assumed  the  human  nature.  This 
complex  proposition,  they  who  denied  the  reality  of 
our  Lord's  sufferings,  denied  ;  not  in  that  part  wh.ch 
affirms  his  divinity,  hut  in  that  part  which  affirms  his 
assumption  of  the  manhood  ;  and  the  denial  of  this, 
was  the  foundation  of  their  error  about  the  sufferings  on 
the  cross.  These  three  characters  of  error,  therefore, 
mentioned  by  St  Polycarp,  might  helong  to  one  and 
the  same  sort  of  persons,  as  Dr  Priestley  supposes  that 
they  did,  and  yet  the  phrase  of  "  coming  in  the  flesh" 
in  its  natural  sense  may,  for  any  thing  that  appears 
from  St  Polycarp's  own  words,  allude  not  to  the 
manhood  simply,  but  to  the  Catholick  doctrine  of  the 
incarnation. 

It  must  be  observed  however,  and  the  fact  is  too 
well  known  to  the  learned  in  ecclesiastical  history  to 
require  proof,  that  a  great  variety  of  sects,  differing 
from  each  other  in  the  wild  and  impious  opinions  which 
they  severally  maintained,  were  comprised  under  the 
general  name  of  GNOSTICKS  :  to  say,  therefore,  that  the 
one  and  same  kind  of  persons,  alluded  to  by  St  Poly, 
carp  under  all  these  three  different  characters,  was  the 
Gnosticks,  is  to  say,  that  this  one  and  same  kind  of 
persons,  was  many  different  kinds :  of  the  various  sects 
that  went  under  this  common  name,  the  Doceta,  who 
denied  our  Lord's  genuine  matdiood,  were  one  general 
branch, — itself  subdivided,  if  I  mistake  not,  into  many 
distinct  denominations  ;  the  Cerinthians,  who  denied 
his  original  divinity,  were  another :  both  these  equally, 
though  in  different  ways,  denied  the  proposition  that 
"  Jesus  Christ  was  come  in  the  flesh/'  in  the  sense  in 
which  the  orthodox  understand  it ;  and  I  confess  I  am 

51 


402 


DISQUISITIONS.  DIS.  1. 


not  sure,  though  Dr  Priestley  says  we  we  sure  of  it, 
that  the  denial  of  the  resurrection  was  not  to  be  found 
in  a  third  class,  distinct  from  either  of  these  two,  and 
from  every  branch  of  the  Gnosticks.  The  two  ancient 
hereticks  mentioned  by  St  Paul,  (2  Tim.  ii.  17,  18,) 
who  said  that  the  resurrection  was  past,  and  in  that 
assertion,  as  St  Chrysostom  observes,  denied  a  resur- 
rection to  come  and  the  general  judgment,  are  not  num- 
bered, by  the  writers  of  antiquity,  among  the  Gnostick 
teachers  : — (See  Dr  Whitby's  note  upon  2  Tim.  ii.  17> 
18.)  The  future  judgment,  was  more  explicitly  denied 
by  these  than  by  the  Gnosticks,  who  only  denied  the 
resuscitation  of  the  body  ;  and  I  think  it  not  unlikely, 
that  they  might  be  the  persons  to  whom  St  Polycarp, 
in  his  third  character  of  damnable  heresy,  alludes  :  be 
that  as  it  may,  it  seems  clear  to  me,  that  St  Polycarp, 
in  the  passage  alleged  by  Dr  Priestley,  describes  three 
different  sets  of  people ;  and  I  should  paraphrase  the 
whole  passage  thus : 

"  Whoever  confesses  not  that  Jesus  Christ,  the  ever 
blessed  and  only  begotten  Son  of  God,  the  brightness 
of  his  glory  and  the  express  image  of  his  person,  the 
eternal  Word  by  whom  he  made  the  worlds,  is  come 
in  the  flesh  ;  he  is  antichrist :  and  if  any  one,  pretending 
to  confess  this,  shall  yet  deny  the  reality  of  his  suffer- 
ings,  in  his  own  proper  and  entire  person,  on  the  cross ; 
he  also,  notwithstanding  he  confess  the  truth  in  the 
former  article,  is  of  the  Devil.  Again,  if  any  one, 
confessing  both  our  Lord's  coming  in  the  flesh,  and  his 
sufferings  and  death,  shall  however  pervert  the  oracles 
of  God,  accommodating  the  divine  doctrine  to  his  own 
prejudices  and  conceits,  and  say  that  there  shall  be 
neither  resurrection  nor  judgment ;  this  man,  notwith- 


J)1S.  J.  DISQUISITIONS. 

standing  bis  confession  of  our  Lord's  incarnation  and 
passion,  is  the  first-born  of  Satan." 

But  whether  St  Polycarp,  in  this  passage,  describe 
three  different  sort  of  hereticks,  or  one  sort  by  three 
characters,  it  is  not  very  material  to. dispute:  the  blessed 
martyr  is  not  enumerating  sects,  as  aa  ecclesiastical 
historian  ;  but,  as  a  preacher  of  the  truth,  he  is  warning 
the  faithful  against  errors  :  he  mentions  three  j  any  one 
of  which  would  avail,  in  his  judgment,  to  the  perdition 
of  him  who  should  maintain  it — for  I  contend,  that  noth- 
ing in  the  words  of  St  Polycarp  himself,  nor  any  known 
and  admitted  fact  in  the  history  of  the  heresies  of  his 
times,  makes  it  necessary  to  apply  the  description  in  the 
whole  to  one  sect,  rather  than  in  the  parts  of  it  to  three: 
I  contend,  that  the  coming  of  our  Lord  in  the  flesh,  his 
passion,  and  the  general  resurrection,  are  three  distinct 
things  :  the  two  first,  for  aiiy  thing  that  appears  from 
St  Polycarp's  words,  as  distinct  from  each  other,  as 
either  is  from  the  third ;  so  distinct  therefore  from  each 
other,  that  a  person  admitting  the  one,  might  possibly 
not  confess  the  other :  I  contend  therefore,  that  for  any 
thing  that  appears  from  the  words  of  St  Polycarp,  a 
person,  confessing  that  our  Lord  came  in  the  flesh, 
might  still  deny  his  sufferings  :  the  phrase,  therefore,  of 
"coming  in  the  flesh/'  for  any  thing  that  appears  from 
St  Polycarp's  own  words,  may  denote  something  more 
than  our  Lord's  mere  manhood  :  and  I  contend  yet 
further,  that  although  it  could  be  proved,  that  St  Poly- 
carp alludes  to  one  sect,  so  that  the  coming  in  the  flesh 
must  necessarily  be  so  understood,  that  the  denial  of  that 
coming,  and  the  denial  of  the  sufferings,  should  be  con. 
sisteut  errors ;  still,  it  will  not  follow  that  the  coming  in 
tfee  flash,  must  be  understood  as  descriptive  simply  of 


DWQtnsrnoxs*.  DIS.  L 

the  manhood.  If  any  one  sect  indeed  singly  be  descri- 
bed, the  Docetae  must  be  that  one,  since  their  character- 
istick  error  makes  an  explicit  part  of  the  description. 
But  with  their  error,  the  denial  of  the  incarnation  was 
perfectly  consistent:  Dr  Priestley  thinks,  that  St  Poly, 
carp  condemns  the  Docetse,  because  they  admitted  not 
that  Christ  was  a  mere  man  :  but  if  L  say  that  St  Poly- 
carp  condemns  them,  not  for  maintaining  that  he  was 
more  than  man,  but  for  denying  that,  being  more  than 
man,  being  indeed  God,  he  was  made  man  ;  and  that  for 
this  reason  he  made  choice  of  the  phrase  of  "  coming  in 
the  flesh,"  that  he  might  not  seem  to  condemn  more  of 
their  doctrine  than  he  really  disapproved.  What  is 
there  in  St  Polycarp's  words  to  prove,  that  I,  rather 
than  Dr  Priestley,  misinterpret  ? 

It  may  seem,  that  if,  for  any  thing  that  appears  from 
the  writer's  words,  the  phrase  may  be  interpreted  in 
either  sense,  the  true  inference  is,  that  it  is  ambiguous  : 
this  conclusion  indeed  follows,  with  respect  to  the  use 
of  the  phrase  in  this  particular  passage  ;  and  it  is  upon 
this  very  ground,  that  I  maintain  the  total  insignificance 
of  the  passage  to  decide  the  matter  in  dispute.     In  the 
fourth  of  my  letters  in  reply  to  Dr  Priestley,  I  have 
considered  the  natural  and  internal  force  of  this  phrase 
of  "  coming  in  the  flesh  ;"  I  have  shown,   that  it  con- 
tains such  evident  allusion  to  a  prior  condition  of  the 
person  who  came,  and  to  the  power  that  he  had  of  coin- 
ing in  various  other  ways,  had  it  pleased   him  other- 
therwise  to  come ;  that  if  the  sacred  writers  really  meant 
to  affirm,  that  our  Lord  was  a  mere  man,  and  nothing 
more,  no  reason  can  be  devised,  why  they  should  make 
choice  of  such  uncouth,  mysterious  words,  for  the  enun- 
ciation of  so  simple  a  proposition,  which  they  might 


DIS.  /.  DISQUISITIONS.  405 

easily  have  stated  in  plain  terms,  incapable  of  miscon. 
struction.     Dr  Priestley  appeals  from   this   reasoning 
of  mine  upon  the  natural   sense  of  the  words,  to  the 
usage  of  writers ;  which   indeed,  when  it  is  clear  and 
constant,  must  be  allowed  to  outweigh  all  reasoning 
from  general  principles,  because  the  particular  sense 
of  a  phrase  is  a  question  about  a  fact ;  and  in  all  such 
questions,  external  evidence,  when  it  can  be  had,  must 
overpower  theory  :  to  prove  that  the  usage  of  the  wri- 
ters of  antiquity,  settles  the  sense  of  the  phrase  in  his 
favour,  he  alleges  this  passage  of  St  Polycarp's  epistle, 
as  an  instance  <*  that  might  satisfy  me  :"  but  I  say, 
that  no  one  who  thinks  the  meaning  of  the  phrase  du- 
bious, will  be  satisfied   by  this  instance  :    for,   not  to 
insist  that  the  usage  of  writers  is  very  insufficiently 
proved  by  a  single  instance,    I  maintain,  that  if  the 
phrase  in  question  were  in  itself  equally  capable  of 
the  two  senses,  the  low  sense  to  which  the  Unitarians 
would  confine  it,  and  the  sublimer  sense  in  which  it  is 
generally  understood,  it  certainly  might  be   taken  in 
cither  in  this  passage   of  St   Polycarp ;  and  that,   in 
whatever  light  the  passage  be  considered,  whether  as 
descriptive  of  three  sects,  as  I  believe  it  to  be,  or  of 
one  only,  as  Dr  Priestley  understands  it.     This  pas- 
sage, therefore,  is  of  no  significance  in  the  argument  • 
since  no  passage  can  be  alleged,   as  an   instance  of 
any  particular  use   of  any  phrase,   in   which  various 
senses  of  the  phrase  may  equally  suit  the  purpose  of 
the  writer. 

To  this  neutral  passage  of  St  Polycarp,  I  have  on 
my  side  to  oppose  a  very  decisive  passage  of  St  Bar- 
nabas; in  which  the  allusion  to  a  prior  condition  of 
our  Lord,  which  I  contend  to  be  the  natural  import 


nts.  *• 

of  the  phrase,  is  manifest ;  and  is  so  necessary  to  the 
writer's  purpose,  that  if  the  phrase  he  understood  with- 
out such  allusion,  the  whole  sentence  is  nonsense.  "  For 
if  he  had  not  come  in  the  flesh,  how  should  we  mortals, 
seeing  him,  have  been  preserved,  when  they  who  be. 
hold  the  sun,  which  is  to  perish  and  is  the  work  of  his 
hands,  are  unable  to  look  directly  against  its  rays  ?" 
Let  Dr  Priestley  find  a  passage,  in  which  the  allusion 
to  our  Lord's  original  glory,  is  as  necessarily  excluded 
from  the  import  of  the  phrase,  as  it  is  included  in  ife 
in  this  passage  of  St  Barnabas  :  and  even  then,  the 
only  just  inference  will  be,  that  the  phrase  is  used  va- 
riously, in  a  more  restrained  or  larger  signification,  as 
may  suit  the  particular  occasion  on  which  it  is  intro- 
duced ;  but  that  in  its  full  and  natural  import,  it  affirms 
the  incarnation. 

But  in  truth,  Dr  Priestley  seems  to  deal  by  St  Poly- 
carp  as  by  St  John ;  by  the  disciple  as  by  the  master : 
devoted  himself  to  the  Unitarian  doctrine,  he  takes  ifc 
with  him  as  a  principle  in  the  study  of  St  Polycarp, 
as  of  the  New  Testament,  that  the  creed  of  St  Poly- 
carp,  as  of  all  the  primitive  Christians,  was  Unitarian : 
then,  whatever  expressions  occur,  alluding  to  opinions  of 
a  different  cast,  he  interprets  in  the  sense  in  which  he 
and  his  Unitarian  brethren  would  use  them  :  from  these 
expressions,  so  interpreted,  he  goes  back  to  his  original 
prejudice,  that  St  Polycarp  held  and  taught  an  Unita- 
rian creed,  as  to  a  conclusion  which  he  hath  drawn,  and 
can  teach  others  to  draw  from  St  Polycarp's  own  wri- 
tings. Alas !  the  sum  of  all  such  reasonings  is  no  mora 
than  this :  I  JOSEPH  PRIESTLEY  am  an  Unitarian  ;  there- 
fore such  was  Polycarp — and  the  basis  of  this  argument 
is,  the  supposed  infallibility  of  JOSEPH  PRIESTLEY, 


.   n  DISQUISITIONS.  407 


DISQUISITION  SECOND. 


Of  Tertullian's  testimony  against  the  Unitarians,  and 
his  use  of  the  word  IDIOTA. 

DR  PRIESTLEY  has  made  it  an  occason  of  great 
triumph  to  himself  and  to  his  party,  that  he  has  caught 
me  tripping,  as  he  thinks,  in  my  Greek  and  Latin,  in 
the  translation  which  1  have  given,  in  the  ninth  of  my 
Letters  in  Reply,  of  a  certain  passage  in  Tertullian'g 
book  against  Praxeas,  which  is  produced  hy  him  as  an 
acknowledgment  of  Tertullian,  that  the  Unitarians  were 
in  his  time  the  majority  of  Christians,  and  is  represent, 
ed  hy  me  as  an  assertion  of  the  contrary.     None  but  an 
idiot,  as  Dr  Priestley  conceives,  in  the  learned  langua- 
ges, would   imagine  that  the  English  word   "idiot/* 
which  I  have  used  in  my  translation  of  that  passage, 
might  in  any  sense  render  the  iS/o/ta  of  the  Greek  or 
the  Idiota  of  the  Latins,  which  is  the  name  by  which, 
with  other  adjuncts,  Tertullian  describes  the  Unitarians 
of  his  time.     Dr  Priestley  says,  in  the  nineteenth  of  hig 
Second  Letters,  sec.  3.     «  What  will  be  said  of  the 
man  who  can  translate  Idiota,  idiot?"  He  hath  now  for 
some  considerable  time,  been  receiving  the  incense  of 
bis  own  applause,  and  the  triumphant  acclamations  of 
his  party,  on  the  occasion  of  this  victory  gained  over 
bis  daring  adversary,  on  the  very  ground,  on  which  the 
enemy  had  taken  his  stand  with  particular  security.  But 
it  will  be  tims  enough  to  bind  the  laurel  ou  their  chief- 


40$  DISQUISITIONS.  &IS.  11. 

tain's  spear,  when  they  are  sure  he  is  in  possession  of 
the  field. 

In  the  seventh  of  his  Second  Letters,  Dr  Priestley 
says  to  me,  "  1  will  venture  to  say,  that  it  properly 
signifies  [the  word  Idiota  in  Latin,  or  lW«c  in  Greek 
properly  signifies]  an  unlearned  man,  or  a  person  who 
has  not  had  a  liberal  education  :"  this  Dr  Priestley 
ventures  to  affirm,  and  this  I  venture  to  deny.  The 
word  iSiwfof  hath  ten  distinct  senses ;  which  I  shall  re- 
cite in  order. 

I.  Jl  private  person  ;  L  e.  a  person  in  private  life, 
in  opposition  to  a  person  in  publick  office  or  employ- 
ment, civil  or  military.     In  this  sense  the  word  is  chief- 
ly used  by  orators  and  historians,  and  by  all  writers 
who  treat  of  popular  subjects  ;  and  this  is  its  first  and 
proper  sense,  as  it  is  of  all  its  senses,  the  most  im- 
mediately connected  with   the  sense  of  the  adjective 
lW,  from  which  the  substantive  iltolnc  is  immediately 
derived. 

II.  JL  person  in  low  life,  one  of  the  common  people, 
in  opposition  to  persons  of  condition.     This  is  nothing 
more  than  an  extension  of  the  former  sense ;  private  life 
in  the  extreme  becoming  obscure  and  low. 

III.  JL  laicJc,  as   distinguished  from  a  clerk.     This 
sense  the  Greek  fathers  easily  grafted  upon  the  first ; 
the  church  being  considered  as  a  polity  of  its  own  kind, 
in  which  the  clergy  bear  the  publick  offices,  the  laity 
are  citizens  in  private  life.     In  a  sense  nearly  allied  to 
this,  the  word  seems  to  be  used  by  St  Paul,  1  Cor.  xiv. 
16,  to  denote  a  private  member  of  a  congregation,  as 
distinguished  from  the  minister. 

IV.  Jl  person  unskilled  in  any  particular  science  or 
art,  in  opposition  to  the  professors  of  it.    The  word; 


J)IS.  It.  DISQUISITIONS, 

thus  used,  rather  expresses  the  want  of  professional 
skill  than  of  ordinary  knowledge — in  this  sense,  tha 
word  is  sometimes  constructed  by  the  Attick  writers 
with  a  genitive  of  the  thing,  and  by  ordinary  writers 
with  an  accusative,  either  with  or  without  a  prepo- 
sition. *Je/»c  fiialw  i/l*.  Plat,  in  Tim.  iltttlnt  M»,  *o?« 
M»,  or  at  5rf»c  Mo. 

V.  •£  person  deficient  in  any  particular  talent,  Jidbit, 
9T  accomplishment.     In  this  sense  the  word  is  some- 
times constructed  with  a  dative  of  the  thing.     iSiwJnc  ru 
A«y»,  £  Cor.  xi.  16.     In  this  sense  the  word  is  used  by 
St  Paul,  1  Cor.  xiv.  S3,  21,  to  denote  a  common  Chris, 
tian,  not  endowed  with  any  of  the  extraordinary  gifts 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  as  distinguished  from  persons  so 
gifted. 

VI.  Jl  person  generally  unlearned;  one  who  hai 
not  had  a  learned  and  liberal  education.     In  this  sense, 
in  conjunction  with  the  epithet  Aftdftpjfa,  the  word 
is  applied  to  the  apostles  by  the  rulers  of  the  Jews. 
Acts  iv.  13. 

VII.  The  plural,  iSi«7ai,  signifies  individuals ;  citi- 
zens, individually  considered,  as  distinguished  from  tha 
collective  body,  the  state. 

VIII.  The  plural  iW«ti,  is  a  collective  name  for  the 
illiterate  vulgar,  in  particular  reference  to  their  gene- 
ral want  of  accomplishment  in  literature,  the  sciences 
and  the  arts.     O  5r»A.vc  IJUKOC,  wc  fiuflttt  »t  ffoyti  xatocr/* 
Lucian. 

IX.  Hence  among  philosophers  and  sophists,  and 
pretenders  to  that  sort  of  taste  which  is  now  called 
virtu,  it  became  a  name  of  reproach  which  they  gave 
to  those  whom  they  thought  disgracefully  deficient  in 
those  accomplishments;  which  they  valued  aud  adma-ad 

M 


4  |Q  DISQUISITION  V.  J>1S.  11. 

in  themselves.  Thus  the  great  Roman  peculator,  seek- 
ing to  hide  his  avarice  under  a  mask  of  affected  taste 
for  the  works  of  the  Greek  masters,  reproached  lug 
accusers  with  idiotcy  in  this  sense  of  the  word.  Erat 

apud  Heium  sacrarium perantiquum,  in  quo  signa 

pulcherrima  quatuor quce  non  modo  istumf  hominem 

ingeniosum  et  intelligentem,  verum  etiam  quemvis  nos- 
trum, quos  iste  idiotas  appellat,  delectare  possent.  Cic. 
in  Verrera.  Act.  2.  lih.  iv.  c.  2. 

X.  And  because  the  faculties  are  apt  to  be  dull, 
when  they  have  not  been  sharpened  by  exercise  upon 
any  subject  whatsoever,  I  Wai,  from  its  use  in  the  sense 
of  illiterate  and  uncultivated,  comes  to  be  an  opprobri- 
ous name  for  the  dull  and  stupid,  without  any  reference 
to  the  want  of  education  as  the  cause  of  the  stupidity. 
It  never  indeed,  as  far  as  I  know,  refers  to  that  consti- 
tutional defect  of  the  faculty  of  reason,  which  is  the 
peculiar  sense  of  the  corresponding  word  of  our  lan- 
guage in  our  statutes  and  law  books ;  but  it  denotes, 
the  goodly  qualities  of  stupidity  and  ignorance  in  the 
gross,  like  our  vernacular  words,  dunce,  booty,  and 
their  synonymes. 

That  this  last  is  the  sense  in  which  it  is  used  by 
Tertullian,  in  the  passage  in  question,  is  sufficiently 
evident  from  the  very  structure  of  the  sentence :  Who- 
ever knows  the  force  of  the  phrase,  pwne  dixerim, 
which  is  probably  as  little  understood  by  Dr  Priestley 
as  St  Jerome's  quid  Aicam;  but  whoever  knows  the 
true  force  of  this  phrase,  will  allow,  that  the  epithets 
imprudentes  and  idiotce,  which  are  introduced  by  it,  must 
contain  some  high  intension  and  aggravation  of  the  qua- 
lities, whatever  they  may  be,  which  are  contained  in 
the  notion  of  the  preceding  adjective,  simplices;  an 


IT.  DISQUISITIONS. 

aggravation  in  such  degree,  that  the  writer  thinks  it 
necessary  to  apologize,  for  the  strength  and  severity  of 
the  terms  which  he  finds  himself  obliged  to  employ. 
This  is  the  force  of  the  phrase  pcene  dixerim :  to  take 
away  what  may  seem  too  much  in  the  terms  which  a 
writer  is  ahout  to  employ,  when  he  fears  they  may  seem 
excessive,  notwithstanding  that  they  are  the  lowest  which 
will  convey  his  full  meaning,  and  do  justice  to  his  ar- 
gument. The  imprudentes  therefore  of  Tertullian,  are 
a  sort  of  people  in  discernment  and  information  many 
degrees  below  his  simplices ;  and  his  uftotorare  still 
below  his  imprudentes.  All  this  is  evident,  to  those 
who  have  any  real  knowledge  of  the  Latin  language, 
from  the  bare  structure  of  the  sentence,  whatever  th» 
proper  use  of  each  of  the  three  words  may  he,  among 
the  polite  writers  of  the  Augustan  age.  As  equivalent 
to  the  Latin  idiotce,  as  it  is  used  by  Tertullian  in  this 
passage,  I  employed  our  English  word  idiots :  I  em- 
ployed the  English  word,  to  express  that  extreme  de- 
gree of  ignorance  and  stupidity,  for  which  our  language 
furnishes  no  other  word  sufficiently  contemptuous,  of 
which  Tertullian  affirms  the  Unitarians  of  his  day,  like, 
their  younger  brethren  in  our  own,  exhibited  a  notable 
example.  It  was  little  to  be  apprehended,  that  even* 
Unitarian  prejudice,  would  render  any  one  so  much  an 
idiot  in  style  and  phraseology,  as  not  to  perceive,  that 
I  used  not  the  word  in  what  in  English  is  its  foreusick 
sense,  especially  when,  in  an  exposition  of  the  passage, 
which  at  the  distance  of  a  few  lines  follows  my  transla- 
tion, I  explain  it  by  the  words  "  dull,"  and  *<  persons  of 
mean  attainments." 

Dr  Priestley  asks  me,  in  the  seventh  of  his  Second 
Letters,  *•'  Pray,  Sir,  in  what  lexicon  or  dictionary,  or- 


DISQUISITIONS.  J)IS.  It. 

dinary  or  extraordinary,  did  you  find  this  sense  of  the 
term  idiota  in  Latin,  or  lW»c,  in  Greek?"'  Dr  Priestley 
is  venturesome  in  propounding  questions  like  this,  and 
seems  to  be  one  of  those,  whom  repeated  miscarriagei 
cannot  render  wary  and  discreet :  I  certainly  consulted 
no  lexicon,  for  the  purpose  of  making  my  translation  of 
that  plain  passage  of  Tertullian ;  and  it  is  within  these 
very  few  days,  that  I  have  taken  the  trouble  to  consult 
lexicons,  in  order  to  discover  what  ground  my  adversa- 
ry may  have  found  in  their  defects,  for  the  confidence 
which  the  question  bespeaks  :  1  will  now  refer  him  to 
certain  lexicons,  never  known  perhaps  in  the  academy 
at  Warrington,  but  such  as  a  late  Greek  professor  tiiere 
might  occasionally  have  condescended  to  consult,  with 
advantage  to  himself  and  to  his  pupils.     The  first  is 
that  old  glossary,  which  was  found  annexed  to  some 
copies  of  St  Cyril,  and  is  published  by  Henry  Stephens, 
in  the  appendix  to  his  Greek  Thesaurus.     In  this  glos- 
sary, the  word  iS/a/Iu?  is  expounded  by  •  pn  vovpur,  words 
which  express  not  the  want  of  education,  but  dullness 
of  the  natural  faculties.     The  second  is  Hobert  Ste- 
phen's JJictionarium  Latino- Galliciim,   in  which  the 
word  idiota  is  rendered  Ung  lourdault,  qui  n'estpas  des 
plus  fins  du  monde,  qui  n'ha  pas  grand  esprit,  Idiot. 
The  third  is  the  learned  Calepini's  Dictionarium  Octo- 
lingue,  in  which  the  author  gives  the  French  words 
lourdaut,  sot,  ignorant,  and  the  English  words,  an  idiot, 
a  fool,  as  rendering  the  Latin  idiota.     The  fourth  is  the 
Thesaurus  of  our  learned  countryman  Cooper,  in  which 
idiota  is  thus  expounded  :    One  that  is  not  very  fine, 
witted;  an  idiot.     If  my  adversary  demand  the  author- 
ity of  an  ordinary  dictionary,  I  will  refer  him  to  a  very 
ordinary  dictionary  indeed ;  to  a  dictionary  in  every 


If, 


DISQUISITIONS, 


413 


school-boy's  hand.  Let  him  turn  to  the  word  idiota 
in  Aiasworth  5  he  will  find  among  its  first  senses,  an 
idiot. 

I  abide  therefore  by  my  assertion,  that  this  passage 
of  Tertullian,  which  Dr  Priestley  mistakes  for  a  tes- 
timony  of  the  popularity  of  his  favourite  opinions  in 
Tertullian's  time,  is  no  such  testimony,  but  a  charge 
of  ignorance  against  his  party ;  of  such  ignorance,  as 
would  invalidate  the  plea  of  numbers,  if  that  plea 
could  be  set  up. 

And  that  this  is  the  true  representation  of  Tertul- 
lian's meaning,  may  be  proved,  without  insisting  upon 
any  particular  force  of  the  word  idiotce,  from  the  neces- 
sary indisputable  sense  of  the  adverb  semper,  which 
extends  Tertullian's  proposition,  concerning  the  majority 
of  believers,  from  his  own  time  in  particular,  to  all  time: 
he  says  not  what  were  or  what  were  not,  the  prevailing 
opinions  of  his  own  times;  but  he  says,  that  those  persons 
who  come  under  the  characters  of  simplices,imprudente8, 
and  idiotce,  that  is,  according  to  Dr  Priestley's  own 
translation,  (which  yet  I  admit  not  otherwise  than  dis- 
yutandi  gratia,  for  I  have  still  "  the  assurance"  to  call 
my  own  an  exact  translation)  but  according  to  Dr  Priest- 
ley's own  translation,  Tertullian  says,  that  persons  who 
come  under  the  character  of  "  the  simple,  the  ignorant, 
and  the  unlearned,"  whatever  their  opinions  at  one  time 
or  another  may  be,  are,  in  all  times,  the  greater  part  of 
believers ;  as  indeed  they  must  be  of  every  society  col- 
lected  indiscriminately,  as  the  church  is,  from  all  ranks 
of  men.  Tertullian  alleges,  that  persons  of  that  descrip- 
tion, in  his  time,  meaning  to  assert  what  they  little  un- 
derstood, the  Divine  Monarchy,  were  startled  at  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  which  they  as  little  understood. 


DISQUISITIONS.  JMS.  ft. 

This  is  the  only  sense  in  which  Tertullian's  words 
can  be  taken,  unless  some  Unitarian  adventurer  in 
criticism  shall  be  able  to  prove,  that  the  adverb  semper 
is  equivalent  to  nunc,  expressive  of  present  time  ex- 
clusively. 

Dr  Priestley  "  wonders  at  my  assurance"  in  another 
circumstance  ;  namely,  that  I  should  limit,  as  he  says, 
what  Tertullian  affirms,  as  he  would  have  him  under- 
stood, of  the  whole  body  of  the  simplices  and  idiotce  to 
some  of  them.  In  this  limitation,  he  says,  I  am  alto* 
gether  unwarranted.  But  when  Turtullian  says,  that 
simple  persons  and  idiotce  are  startled  at  the  economy, 
the  natural  sense  of  the  words  is,  that  this  scruple  was 
incident  chiefly  to  persons  of  that  description ;  not  that 
it  was  to  be  found  in  the  whole  body  of  the  common 
people  :  he  insinuates,  that  persons  of  that  weak  char- 
acter only  were  liable  to  that  alarm — had  he  meant  to 
speak  of  the  whole  body  of  the  common  people,  he  must 
have  used  phrases  of  another  cast,  as  vulgus  indoctum^ 
or  genus  homimim  simplex:  Dr  Priestley's  complaint 
against  me,  might  have  seemed  to  have  some  founda- 
tion, had  the  word  "  some"  been  prefixed  to  «  simple 
persons"  in  my  translation — but  it  only  appears  in  an 
exposition  of  the  passage,  which  follows  the  translation  ; 
and  surely,  having  translated  the  passage  exactly,  I 
took  no  unwarrantable  liberty  in  adding  an  explanatioa 
of  the  author's  sense  (or  of  what  I  take  to  be  his  sense) 
in  my  own  words.  Had  Dr  Priestley's  loose  exposi- 
tions of  the  passages  in  ancient  writers,  which  he  cites, 
been  always  accompanied  with  exact  translations,  the 
world  would  have  had  less  reason  to  stand  aghast  at 
his  assurance  and  ill-dissembled  management.  But  to 
what  purpose  can  it  be;  to  hold  au  argument  with  a, 


IMS.  II.  DISQUISITIONS. 

man,  who  is  too  hasty  to  distinguish  between  what  pro- 
fesses to  be  paraphrase,  and  what  pretends  to  be  exact 
translation ;  who  has  the  vanity  to  play  the  critick  in 
languages,  to  the  idioms  of  which  he  is  a  stranger ;  and 
the  audacity  to  challenge  the  production  of  authorities, 
without  taking  the  pains  to  iuform  himself,  in  which 
scale  the  weight  of  authority  may  preponderate?  "Pray, 
Sir,  in  what  lexicon  or  dictionary,  ordinary  or  extraor- 
dinary, do  you  find  idiota  in  Latin,  or  iW«c  in  Greek, 
rendered  idiot?"  Vide  Glossarium  Vetus,  R.  Steph. 
Calepin.  Cooper,  Ainsworth. 


4(8  BISQU1SIT10NS.  SIS.  lit 


DISQUISITION  THIRD. 

On  what  is  found  relating  to  the  Ebionites  in  the  writings  of 
Irenaeus,  in  confutation  of  an  argument  advanced  by  Dr 
Priestley  in  favour  of  the  Ebionites,  in  the  third  of  his 
First,  and  the  fourth  of  his  Second  Letters^  from  the  wri~ 
tings  of  Irenceus  in  particular. 

THE  particular  argument  in  favour  of  the  Ebionites, 
which  Dr  Priestley,  in  the  third  of  his  First  Letters  to 
me,  attempted  to  draw  from  the  writings  of  Iren^EUS, 
was  so  ably,  though  concisely  answered  in  the  Monthly 
Review  for  January  1781,  by  Mr  Badcock,  who,  taking 
facts  as  Dr  Priestley  chose  to  state  them,  showed,  even 
upon  his  own  statement  of  the  facts,  the  utter  futility 
of  his  conclusion,  inasmuch  as  the  contrary  conclusion 
might  be  drawn  with  equal  probability  from  the  same 
assumptions,  that  when  I  wrote  my  Letters  in  reply, 
I  thought  I  might  be  excused  if  I  passed  by  this  argu- 
ment without  any  other  notice,  than  a  slight  reference  to 
Mr  Badcock's  confutation.  But  in  the  sixth  of  his  Se- 
cond Letters,  Dr  Priestley  hath  attempted  to  refit  this 
shattered  piece  of  his  artillery,  and  to  bring  it  agaiu 
into  action. 

He  says  to  me,  "  It  is  truly  remarkable,  and  may 
not  have  been  observed  by  you,  as  indeed  it  waa 
not  by  myself  till  very  lately," — (It  had  indeed  been 
strange,  if  any  sagacity  of  remark  in  me  had  outrun  Dr 
Priestley's !)— «  that  Iren^us,  who  has  written  so  large 


.  in.  DISQUISITIONS. 


&  work  on  the  subject  of  heresy,  after  the  time  of  Justin, 
in  a  country  where  it  is  probable  there  were  fewer  Unita- 
rians, again  and  again  characterizes  them  in  such  a  man- 
ner, as  makes  it  evident,  that  even  he  did  not  consider 
any  other  persons  as  hereticks  besides  the  Gnosticks. 
He  expresses  a  great  dislike  of  the  Ebioiiites,  but  he 
never  calls  them  hereticks."* 

Freely  1  resign  to  Dr  Priestley  the  honour  of  having 
been  the  first  to  made  this  remark  ;  at  least,  1  shall  put 
in  no  claim  for  myself,  or  for  my  friends  :  if  any  plagiar- 
ism hath  been  committed,  which  I  pretend  not  in  this 
particular  instance  to  assert,  the  depredation  must  have 
been  made  upon  some  of  his  own  party  :  for  I  will  ven- 
ture to  affirm,  that  the  remark,  so  far  as  it  extends  to 
Irenseus's  acquittal  of  the  Ebionites  from  the  imputatiou 
of  heresy,  could  have  occurred  to  none,  that  had  not  becu 
in  some  good  degree  an  IDIOT  in  the  writings  of  Irense- 
us  :  it  could  have  occurred  to  none,  that  had  known  more 
of  the  work  of  Irenseus,  than  is  to  be  learned  from  an 
occasional  reference  to  particular  passages,  by  the  help 
of  an  index. 

The  great  object  of  Irenseus  in  his  work  against 
heresies,  is,  to  assert  the  Scripture  doctrines  of  the 
unity  of  God,  and  the  incarnation  of  the  Divine  Word, 
in  their  original  simplicity,  against  the  numerous  secta- 
ries of  his  times,  who,  from  various  views  and  motives, 
had  variously  disfigured  and  disguised  them.  Some 
thought,  that  they  gave  a  clear  solution  of  the  dark 
question  about  the  origin  of  evil,  when  they  maintained^ 
that  the  world  is  the  work  of  one  or  more  intelligences, 
far  interior  to  the  First  Mind  :  some,  to  account  foe 


*  Second  Letters  p,  56. 

68 


.  in 

some  circumstances  of  contrariety,  that  may  appear  upon 
a  superficial  view  of  the  Old  and  the  New  Testament, 
taught  that  the  God  of  the  Jews  was  a  distinct  being, 
from  the  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ :  some,  to 
solve  the  difficulties  in  the  great  doctrine  of  the  incarna- 
tion, indulged  in  a  most  criminal  wantonness  of  specu- 
lation, concerning  the  person  of  Christ :  some,  affecting 
a  deep  mysterious  wisdom,  endeavoured  to  explain,  in 
obscure  and  ill-imagined  allegories,  the  procession  of 
the  different  orders  of  intellect  and  life  from  the  Divine 
Mind,  and  the  production  of  the  visible  world  :  some, 
the  most  profane  and  hardened,  artfully  availed  them- 
selves of  certain  mysterious  points  of  the  Christian  doc- 
trine, to  give  personal  consequence  to  themselves,  and 
to  gain  credit  among  the  vulgar  to  the  most  impious 
pretensions.  To  guard  the  faithful  against  these  vari- 
ous seductions,  and  to  establish  them  in  the  belief  of  the 
true  Scripture  doctrine  of  ONE  GOD,  absolute  in  power 
and  in  all  perfection,  who,  by  his  Eternal  Word,  crea- 
ted all  things  in  heaven  and  in  earth,  visible  and  invisi- 
ble ;  and,  having  in  time  past  spoken  to  the  fathers  by 
the  prophets,  hath  spoken  in  the  last  days  by  his  Son, 
the  same  Divine  Word  incarnate,  and  hath  reconciled 
mankind  to  himself,  through  him,  who,  to  effect  this 
reconciliation,  united  the  manhood  to  the  Godhead  in 
his  own  person, — to  establish  the  faithful  in  this  doc- 
trine, Irenaeus  undertakes  the  confutation  of  those  ex- 
travagant conceits,  by  which  it  is  either  contradicted, 
or  perverted  and  disgraced,  never  losing  sight  of  his 
two  cardinal  points,  the  unity  of  God,  and  the  incar- 
nation of  the  Word. 

His  whole  work  consists  of  five  books  :  of  these,  the 
first  is  historical,  exhibiting  a  general  view  of  hereti 


&!S.  HI. 


DISQUISITIONS. 


419 


cal  opinions,  in  those  points  in  which  they  differed 
most  essentially  from  genuine  Christianity  ;  reciting  the 
names  of  the  principal  haeresiarehs,  describing  their 
characters,  and  relating  the  varieties  of  opinion,  by 
which  the  different  sects  were  distinguished. 

In  the  second  book,  the  author  professes  to  refute  the 
extravagant  opinions  recited  in  the  first,  by  general  ar- 
guments, exposing  the  incoherence  and  intrinsic k  absur- 
dity of  each.  In  the  third,  he  engages  to  bring  a  con- 
futation of  the  same  opinions  from  Scripture  in  general  ^ 
in  the  fourth,  from  our  Lord's  own  discourses  in  par- 
ticular; in  the  fifth,  from  our  Lord's  own  words,  and 
the  writings  of  St  Paul. 

In  the  first  book,  after  a  general  recital  of  the  princi- 
pal extravagancies  offthe  Valentinians,  the  author  under* 
takes  to  show,  that  Simon  Magus  was  the  parent  of  all 
heresy,  and  that  the  distinguishing  conceits  of  every 
sect,  attached  to  one  point  or  another  of  his  doctrine : 
for  this  purpose,  he  gives  a  list  of  hseresiarchs  and  sects, 
from  Simon  Magus,  in  succession,  to  his  own  time, 
specifying  the  particular  doctrines  of  each  :  in  this  list, 
the  Ebionites  have  the  honour  to  have  the  name  of  their 
sect,  enrolled  *  between  the  Corinthians  and  Nicolait- 
ans.  If  Irenxus  deemed  them  not  here  ticks,  he  has 
surely  put  them  in  bad  company.  At  no  great  distance 
from  the  Ebionites,  he  introduces  Marcionif  this  Mar- 
cion  was  a  most  distinguished  heretick,  not  only  for  the 
extravagance  and  impiety  of  his  doctrine,  but  for  the 
liberty  which  he  took  with  the  books  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament, altering  or  expunging  whatever  he  disliked,  till 
he  made  the  holy  Scriptures,  as  he  thought,  speak  his 


*  lab.  I.  cap.  xx  ti. 


f  Ibid,  xxix, 


DISQUISITIONS.  JO  IS.  lit. 

own  sentiments.  Irenseua  promises  a  particular  confu- 
tation of  the  opinions  of  Marcion,  from  the  Scriptures, 
as  Marcion  himself  received  them  :  but  notwithstanding 
this  design,  he  found  it  necessary,  he  says,  to  mention 
him  in  this  place,  in  order  to  make  out  his  assertion, 
"  that  all  whe  adulterated  the  truth,  and  impugned  tho 
publick  doctrine  of  the  church,  were  disciples  of  Simon, 
the  Samaritan  sorcerer;"*  intimating,  that  having  in 
his  contemplation  a  particular  work  upon  the  heresy  of 
Marcion,  he  would  have  omitted  the  mention  of  him  in 
this  place,  but  that  the  omission  would  have  rendered 
the  list  of  haeresiarchs,  descending  from  Simon  Magus, 
defective.  Here  then,  we  see  both  the  author's  atten- 
tion to  the  accuracy  of  his  list,  and  his  own  notion  of 
what  sort  of  persons  they  were  who  had  a  right  to  a 
place  in  it :  the  accuracy  of  his  list,  had  certainly  been 
as  much  vitiated  by  an  improper  insertion,  as  by  an 
emission  :  where  then  is  the  probability,  that  an  author, 
\vho  declares  he  would  have  omitted  Marcion,  but  from 
a  scrupulous  attention  to  the  accuracy  of  his  catalogue 
of  hseresiarchs,  in  defiance  of  any  such  scruple,  would 
have  inserted  the  Ebionites,  had  not  their  notorious 
heresy,  and  their  affinity  with  Simon  Magus,  given 
them  an  equal  claim  with  Marcion,  and  with  their  next 
neighbours,  the  Cerinthians  and  Nicolaitans,  to  admis- 
sion ?  Again,  the  author's  notion  of  the  sort  of  persons 
that  were  to  be  included  in  his  list,  namely,  "  adultera- 


*  Sed  hnic  quidem— — — — seorsum  contradicemus ;  ex  ejus  scriptis  argtieotes 
cum,  et  ex  iis  sermonibus,  qui  apud  eum  observati  sunt,  Domini  et  Apostoli, 
qnibus  ipse  utitur,  evcrsioncm  ejus  facientes  prsestar.te  Deo.  Nunc  autem  neces- 
sario  meminimus  tjus,  ut  scires  quoniam  cranes,  qui  quoqno  modo  adulterant 
veritatem,  et  prseconium  Ecclesije  ladunt,  Simonis  Samaritan!  Magi  discipuli  et 
•accessores  sunt.  Lib.  I  cap.  xjix.  et  xxx. 


.  in. 


DISQUISITIONS. 


421 


tors  of  the  truth,  impugners  of  the  publick  doctrine  of 
the  church,  and  disciples  of  Simon  the  Samaritan  sor- 
cerer," clearly  proves  what  the  publick  character  of  the 
Ebionites  was,  whom  he  hath  enrolled  among  these 
worthies.  To  have  registered  among  the  sects,  allied 
to  Simon  Magus,  persons  who  lay  under  no  publick 
imputation  of  heresy,  however  in  bis  own  private  judg- 
ment he  might  see  reason  to  reprobate  their  tenets,  had 
been  a  very  awkward  proof  of  the  general  affinity  be- 
tween  heresy  and  Simon  Magus  :  to  the  proof  of  this,  a 
consent  or  resemblance  of  opinion,  between  Simon  Ma- 
gus and  those  who  were  no  hereticks,  or  not  generally 
deemed  such,  could  little  contribute — it  would  rather 
indeed  conduce  to  the  acquittal  of  Simon,  than  the  con- 
demnation of  an  innocent  sect  said  to  resemble  him  ; 
the  Ebionites,  therefore,  having  a  place  in  this  list,  bj 
which  Simon  is  to  be  proved  the  common  parent  and 
founder  of  all  heresies,  unquestionably  partook  of  that 
character,  which  Irenaeus  makes  the  peculiar  mark  of  that 
family.  They  were  adulterators  of  the  truth,  not  bare- 
ly of  what  was  truth  in  the  private  judgment  of  Irenasus, 
but  they  were  impugners  of  the  publick  doctrine  of  the 
«hurch :  if  such  persons  were  not  hereticks,  I  have  yet 
to  learn  the  meaning  of  the  name. 

I  am  well  aware,  that  a  laudable  concern  for  the  re- 
putation of  his  ancestors,  will  incline  Dr  Priestley  to 
put  the  question,  in  what  circumstance  the  Ebionites 
resembled  Simon  Magus  ?  Some  resemblance,  he  will 
say,  according  to  Irenseus's  notions,  was  necessary  to 
constitute  a  heresy :  for  if  all  hereticks  resembled  Simou 
Magus  in  some  circumstance  or  another,  they  who  re- 
eembled  him  in  none,  were  no  hereticks. 

To  this  it  may  be  answered;  that  Epiphauiu«,  whea 


uisQUfsmoNs;  JOTS,  m 

he  tells  us  that  Ebiou's  Judaism  was  of  the  Samaritan 
cast,  says  what  may  be  thought  to  imply  a  resemblance, 
in  many  circumstances,  between  this  sect  and  the  Sama- 
ritan sorcerer :  but  the  principle  in  which  Irenseus,  I 
doubt  not,  placed  the  resemblance,  was  no  other  than 
the  cardinal  doctrine  of  the  Ebionites,  of  the  mere  hu- 
manity of  our  Lord.  This,  as  it  was  taught  by  the 
Cerinthians  and  the  first  Ebionites,  was  indeed  nothing 
more  than  a  refinement  upon  the  older  error  of  the  Do- 
cetae,  of  which  Simon  was  the  first  teacher.  The  Do- 
cetse,  thinking  it  beneath  the  dignity  of  a  celestial  being 
to  undergo  the  life  of  a  man,  and  to  submit  to  a  violent 
and  painful  death,  maintained,  that  the  body  of  Jesut 
was  a  mere  illusion,  and  the  whole  scene  of  his  suffer- 
ings phantastick  :  or,  if  any  of  them  admitted  the  reality 
of  the  sufferings,  they  denied,  however,  that  Jesus  was 
the  sufferer.  The  Cerinthians,  whose  doctrines  the 
first  Ebionites  followed  in  what  related  to  the  person  of 
our  Lord,  thought  it  more  reasonable  to  admit  that  Jesua 
was  a  real  man,  the  subject  of  real  sufferings :  they 
maintained,  that  he  was  a  mere  man ;  and  they  suppo- 
sed a  superangeliek  being,  which  they  called  the  Christ, 
to  have  been  through  life  the  guide  and  guardian  of  the 
man ;  something  more  perhaps  than  a  Socratick  demon, 
but  yet  distinct  from  the  man,  and  exempt  from  all  par- 
ticipation of  his  sufferings.  This  is  evidently  a  refine- 
ment upon  the  doctrine  of  the  Docetaa.  Both  doctrinei 
had  a  common  object, — to  give  the  doctrine  of  the  incar- 
nation such  a  turn,  that  a  divine  or  superangeliek  nature, 
might  not  be  involved  in  the  miseries  of  mortality :  for 
this  purpose,  the  Docetse  denied  the  reality  of  the  man- 
hood ;  and  the  Ebionites,  with  the  Cerinthians,  main- 
tained a  separate  personality,  and  distinct  conditions  of 


///.  DISQUISITIONS. 

the  man  and  the  superior  being :  thus  the  affinity  be- 
tween the  Ebionites  and  the  Simoiiians  is  manifest ;  and 
the  derivation  of  the  one  from  the  other,  easy  and  natu- 
ral :  and  1  cannot  but  remark,  that  as  the  ancient  Ebi- 
onsean  doctrine  passes  by  a  single  step,  the  dismission 
of  the  superangelick  being,  into  the  modern  Unitarian, 
that  too  is  traced  to  its  source  in  the  chimeras  of  the 
Samaritan  sorcerer :   and  thus,  both  the  Ebionites  of 
antiquity,  and  the  Unitarians  of  our  own  time,  are  in 
truth  branches,  or  the  offspring  at  least,  of  Gnosticism — 
and  in  this  extended  meaning  of  the  word  I  am  ready 
to  allow,  that  Irenseus  knew  of  no  hereticks,  but  what 
are  included  under  the  general  name  of  Gnosticks.     Be 
that  as  it  may,  I  maintain,  that  the  first  book  of  Irenaeus, 
by  the  enrolment  therein  made  of  the  Ebionites,  in  a 
list,  in  which  the  author  had  done  disservice  to  his  own 
argument,  had  he  inserted  any  but  known  hereticks  5 
affords  a  clear  argument,  that  the  Ebionites  were  he- 
reticks in  the  judgment  of  the  church,  in  the  time  of 
Iren^us. 

In  the  second  book  of  Irenseus,  no  mention  of  the  Ebi- 
onites occurs,  either  by  Dame  or  by  description ;  nor  is 
this,  indeed,  the  place  where  any  mention  of  that  sect 
might  be  expected  :  the  argument  of  the  second  book,  is 
a  confutation  of  heretical  opinions  from  principles  of 
mere  reason ;  from  general  views  of  their  intrinsick  ab- 
surdity and  incoherence :  but  the  error  of  the  Ebionites, 
is  not  of  the  number  of  those  that  may  be  so  confuted ; 
the  great  mystery  of  godliness,  the  incarnation  of  the 
Divine  Word,  was  no  discovery  of  natural  reason. 
[Reason,  therefore,  whose  natural  powers,  upon  this 
subject,  gave  no  knowledge  of  the  truth,  is  insufficient, 
without  the  aid  of  revelation,  to  the  refutation  of  the 


DISQUISITIONS.  D1S.  III. 

contrary  falsehood  :  the  conviction  of  the  Ebiunites, 
must  rest  entirely  upon  holy  writ. 

Accordingly,  in  the  third  hook,  in  which  the  confuta- 
tion is  drawn  from  Scripture,  the  Ebioniles  are  thus 
mentioned  :  "  They  again  who  say,  that  he  was  merely 
a.  m*n  engendered  of  Joseph,  die;  continuing  in  the 
bondage  of  the  former  disobedience,  having  to  the  last 
no  conjunction  with  the  word  of  God  the  Father,  nor  re- 
ceiving freedom  through  the  Son,  according  to  that 
saying  of  his  own,  If  the  Son  give  you  manumission, 
ye  shall  be  free  indeed.  But  not  knowing  him,  who  ia 
the  Emmanuel  of  the  Virgin,  they  are  deprived  of  his 
gift,  which  is  eternal  life  :  and  not  receiving  the  incor- 
ruptible word,  they  continue  in  the  mortal  flesh,  and  are 
liable  to  the  natural  debt  of  death,  not  accepting  the  an- 
tidote of  life."* 

That  the  Ebionites  are  the  persons  intended  in  this 
passage,  we  need  not  be  solicitous  to  prove,  since  a  part 
of  the  passage  is  cited  by  Dr  Priestley  himself,  in  the 
appendix  of  his  First  Letters,  as  unquestionably  relating 
to  that  sect.  In  this  passage,  their  error  and  their 
crime  is  placed  in  their  assertion,  that  our  Lord  was  a 
mere  man,  the  son  of  Joseph  :  this  error,  is  called  a  re- 
jection of  the  incorruptible  word,  a  refusal  of  the  anti- 
dote of  life :  these  are  phrases,  evidently  descriptive  of  a 
hardened  infidelity,  which  listens  not,  with  a  due  sub- 


•  Rursus  autem  qui  nude  tantum  hominem  eum  dicunt  ex  Joseph  generatma, 
persererantes  in  servitute  pristinte  inobedientie  rnoriuntur,  nondutn  commix ti 
verbo  Dei  Patris,  neque  per  Filium  pevcipientes  libertatem,  quemadmodum  ipse 
ait ;  si  Filius  vos  manwniserit,  vere  liberi  eritia.  Ignorantes  autem  eum  qui  ex 
Yirgine  est  Emmanuel,  prirantur  raunere  cjus,  quod  est  vita  aeterua  :  non  reci- 
picnics  autem  verbum  incorruptionis  perseverant  in  carne  mortal!,  et  sunt  debi- 
tores  mortis,  autidotum  vitae  non  accipientes.  Lib.  3.  cap.  xxi. 


BIS.  Ill,  DISQUISITIONS. 

mission  of  the  understanding,  to  the  evangelical  doctrine. 
The  Ebionites  therefore,  by  their  wicked  doctrine  of  our 
Lord's  mere  humanity,  seemed  to  Irenaeus  to  be  mere 
infidels  ;  and  in  consequence  of  this  infidelity,  "  to  die 
in  the  bondage  of  the  former  disobedience,  having  to  the 
last,  no  connexion  with  the  word  of  God  the  Father, 
continuing  in  the  mortal  flesh,  and  liable  to  the  natural 
debt  of  death."  These  expressions,  describe  the  miser- 
able condition  of  the  unconverted  and  impenitent ;  who, 
notwithstanding  what  the  Son  of  God  hath  done  and 
suffered  for  those  who  will  believe  in  him,  remain  ob- 
noxious to  the  guilt  and  punishment  of  their  own  sins, 
as  well  as  to  all  the  dreadful  consequences  of  the  first 
transgression.  Such,  Ircnecus  doomed  tho  dangerous 
situation  of  these  infidel  Ebionites  :  he  says  further,  that 
for  their  ignorance  of  him  who  is  the  Emmanuel  of  the 
Virgin,  and  in  consequence  of  the  infidelity  and  impeni- 
tence of  which  that  ignorance  was,  in  his  judgment,  a 
sure  symptom,  "  they  are  deprived  of  the  gift  of  that 
Emmanuel,  which  gift  is  eternal  life."  To  be  depri- 
ved of  that  life  eternal,  which  is  the  gift  of  the  Emman- 
uel, is  the  same  thing  in  the  phraseology  of  the  ancient 
writers,  as  to  be  under  a  sentence  of  eternal  damnation : 
these  Ebionites  therefore,  who  said  that  our  Lord  was 
a  mere  man,  convicted  by  that  wicked  assertion  of  an 
evil  heart  of  impenitence  and  unbelief,  in  the  opinion  of 
Irenaeus,  lay  under  a  sentence  of  eternal  punishment, 
which  nothing  but  a  renunciation  of  their  error,  and  a 
sincere  repentance,  might  avert.  Nothing  can  be  clear- 
er,  than  that,  in  this  passage,  they  are  taxed  with  infide- 
lity and  impenitence,  and  threatened  with  the  doom 
which  awaits  such  crimes  :  but  Dr  Priestley  can  find  no 
such  sentence  of  damnation  in  this  passage,  passed  upon 

5* 


DISQUISITIONS:  &rs.  ni. 

the  Ebionites.  "  Irenaeus  must  have  meant,  not  that 
the  Ebionites  in  particular,  but  that  mankind  in  general, 
could  have  had  no  resurrection,  if  the  Ebionaean  doc- 
trine had  been  true."*  That  is,  Irenaeus,  expressly 
speaking  of  the  Ebionites  in  particular,  must  be  under- 
stood  of  mankind  in  general :  speaking  of  their  particu- 
lar punishment,  he  must  be  understood  to  speak  of  a 
general  calamity.  The  ground  of  the  necessity  is  ob- 
vious— in  no  other  way  of  interpretation,  can  what  Ire- 
naeus hath  actually  said  of  the  Ebionites,  be  brought  to 
agree  with  what  Dr  Priestley,  for  the  interest  of  his 
cause,  must  wish  he  had  said  about  them.  The  learn- 
ed  Feuardentius,  who  lived  not  to  be  enlightened  by 
the  new  revelations  of  our  modern  Unitarians,  and 
above  all,  by  Dr  Priestley's  ingenious  expositions  of  the 
Scriptures  and  the  fathers,  was  blind  to  this  necessity : 
«  Irenaeus  contends  in  this  chapter,"  says  Feuardentius, 
"  that  they  who  make  Christ  the  son  of  Joseph,  attain 
neither  remission  of  sins,  nor  the  adoption  of  the  sons 
of  God,  nor  so  much  as  the  right  of  a  blessed  resurrec- 
tion,"! 

In  the  fourth  book,  after  a  confutation  of  many  here- 
tical opinions,  Irenaeus  lays  down  this  maxim : J  that 
the  believer,  who  steadily  adheres  to  the  great  principle 
of  one  God,  wfio  created  all  things  by  his  word,  and 
studies  the  Scriptures  with  the  assistance  of  the  presby- 
ters of  the  church,  who  were  in  possession,  as  Irenseus 
says,  of  the  doctrine  of  the  apostles;  will  extricate  him- 


*  First  Letters,  p.  118. 

•f  Cpntendii  autem  hoc  capite  Iren&iiSj  illos  nee  peccatorum  remissionem,  nee 
adoplionem  filiorum  Dei,  imo  nee  jus  beatx  resurrei-.tionis  assequi,  qui  Christum 
ftlium  Joseph  constituuiit.  Feuarilentius  ad  laudalum  loeum  /re»<«. 

$  Lib.  4.  cap.  hi. 


X>JS.  III.  DISQUISITIONS. 

self  from  the  difficulties,  which  were  the  stumbling- 
blocks  of  hereticks :  in  particular,  he  will  perceive 
the  connexion  and  affinity  between  the  Old  Testament 
and  the  New,  and  will  understand,  that  the  same  God 
was  the  author  of  both :  "  such  a  disciple,"  he  says, 
"being  truly  spiritual,  inasmuch  as  he  receiveth  the 
Spirit  of  God,  who,  under  all  the  dispensations  of  God, 
was  present  with  men,  and  announced  the  future,  and 
showeth  the  present,  and  relateth  the  past ;  [such  a  spi- 
ritual disciple]  judgeth  all,  but  is  judged  himself  of 
none."*  He  judgeth  all :  that  is,  he  discerns  in  what 
point  the  error  of  any  erroneous  doctrine  lies,  and  he  can 
evince  its  inconsistence  with  the  truth  :  but  he  himself, 
Laving  the  written  word  and  the  doctrine  of  the  apostles 
for  his  guide,  and  enjoying  the  secret  illumination  of  the 
Spirit,  is  inconfutable :  Irenseus  illustrates  and  amplifies 
this  aphorism,  by  an  application  of  it  to  different  sects; 
showing  how  and  upon  what  principles,  the  spiritual  dis- 
ciple will  judge  them;  L  e.  expose  and  refute  their  errors : 
this  amplification  of  the  general  sentiment,  makes  a  very 
long  period,  which  some  of  the  early  editors  (Grynaeus 
I  believe)  hath  broken  into  no  less  than  nine  chapters, 
prefixing  to  each  a  proper  title.  This  spiritual  disciple, 
Irenaeus  says,  will  judge  the  Gentiles,t — will  judge  the 
Jews,J — w 511  judge  the  Marciouites,|| — will  judge  the 
Vralentinians.$ — "He  will  also  judge  the  vain  bab- 
blings of  wicked  Gnosticks,  showing  them  to  be  the 


*  Tails  discipnlus  vere  spiritalis,  recipiens  Spiritum  Dei,  qui  ab  initio,  in  uni 
versis  dispositionibus  Dei,  affuit  horatnibus,  et  tutura  annuntiavit,  ct  prsesentL  os- 
tendit,  et  prseterita  enarrat,  judicat  qiiidem  oranes,  ipse  autem  a  nemine  judicatur. 
Lib.  4.  cap.  liii. 

|  Lib.  4.  cap.  Hv,  i  Cap.  Iv.  ft  Cap.  hii.  §  Cap.  hiii. 


DISQUISITIONS.  DIS.  Ill 

disciple*  of  Simon  Magus.* — He  will  also  judge  the 
Ebionites :  how  can  they  be  saved,  unless  he,  who 
wrought  iheir  salvation  upon  earth,  be  God?"f  Dr 
Priestley  imagines,  that  Irenseus  says  of  the  Ebionites, 
that  *"  God  will  judge  them  :"f  this  mistake,  of  putting 
God's  judgment  for  the  sound  believer's  judgment,  is 
indeed  of  no  importance  in  the  argument ;  I  mention  it 
only  as  one  instance,  of  that  practice  of  which  I  accuse 
Dr  Priestley,  of  taking  short  detached  passages,  in  the 
sense  which  may  first  occur  to  him,  without  knowing, 
and  without  examining,  with  what  they  may  be  con- 
nected in  the  context  of  the  author's  discourse.  Tails 
discipulus  vere  spiritalis,  is  the  subject  of  the  verb  Jw- 
dicabltf  from  the  Lllld.  chapter  to  the  end  of  the 
LXIId  :  Irenaeus  says  then,  that  the  spiritual  disciple 
«  will  judge  the  Ebionites  :"  and  this  is  the  principle 
upon  which  he  will  judge  them,  "  that  they  could  not 
be  saved,  unless  he,  who  wrought  their  salvation  upon 
earth,  be  God."  But  this,  Dr  Priestley  says  "is  no  sen- 
tence  of  damnation  passed  upon  them  in  particular  for 
holding  their  doctrine,  but  an  argument  used  by  him  to 
refute  them  ;  and  is  the  same  as  if  he  had  said,  mankind 
in  general  could  not  be  saved,  if  Christ  had  not  been 
God  as  well  as  man."||  This  shall  be  granted.  What 
Irenseus  says  in  the  passage  now  under  consideration, 
is  nothing  more  than  an  argument  for  the  refutation  of 
the  Ebionites ;  and  the  principle  of  this  argument  is 
rightly  stated  by  Dr  Priestley  :  but  by  whom  is  this 


*  Judicabit  autem  ct  vaniloquia  pravorum  Gnosticorum,  Simonis  eos  Magi 
discipulos  ostendens.  Cap.  Iviii. 

J-  Jndicabit  autem  et  Ebionitas;  quomodo  possunt  salvari,  nisi  Deus  est  qni 
s-Uutem  eorum  super  terratn  operatus  est  ?  Cap.  lix. 

t  First  Letters,  p.  33.  U  Ibid. 


J)1S.  III.  DISQUISITIONS. 

argument  used  ?  By  Irenaeus  :  not  simply  by  Irenseus 
in  his  own  person  ;  it  is  the  argument  which  Irenseus 
puts  in  the  mouth  of  the  spiritual  disciple :  the  spiritual 
disciple — that  is,  every  spiritual  disciple,  every  sound 
believer  is  the  person,  who  upon  these  principles,  will 
confute  the  Ebionites  :  Irenseus  therefore,  distinguish- 
ing the  Ebionites  who  are  confuted,  from  every  spirit- 
ual disciple  who  confutes,  sets  the  former  out  of  the  so- 
ciety of  spiritual  disciples,  of  sound  believers,  and  puts 
them  in  the  class  of  those  who  are  not  spiritual ;  that  is, 
of  those  who  have  not  the  spirit :  for  were  they  spiritual, 
they  could  not  be  the  objects  of  the  spiritual  disciple's 
opposition  and  confutation  ;  but  the  class  of  those,  who 
are  not  spiritual,  is  the  choice  society  of  hereticks  and 
infidels — for  he,  who  hath  not  the  spirit  of  Christy  is  none 
of  his.  In  this  passage  therefore,  the  Ebionites  are 
clearly  ranked  with  hereticks. 

It  deserves  particular  notice,  that  one  circumstance  in 
Irenseus's  description  of  the  spiritual  disciple  who  jud- 
ges these  Ebionites,  is,  that  "  he  is  a  follower  of  the 
publick  doctrine  of  the  church;"*  whence  it  might  seem 
no  unnatural  conclusion,  if  other  proof  of  the  thing  were 
wanting,  that  the  publick  judgment  of  the  church,  no 
less  than  the  sentiments  of  Irenseus,  was  against  the 
Ebiouites  ;  that  they  were  opposers  of  the  publick  doc- 
trine,  and  of  course,  in  the  publick  estimation,  hereticks  : 
but  the  same  thing  indeed,  is  sufficiently  implied  in  the 
representation  given  them,  as  maintainers  of  an  opinion 
which  struck  at  the  very  root  of  the  doctrine  of  redemp- 
tion, and  lay  open  to  every  sound  believer's  confutation. 


*  Si  et  scripturam  diligenter  legerit,  apud  eos  tiui  ia  fictlesia  sunt  presbytet •», 
quos  est  aj-ostoHca  tioetrina.    Cap.  lii. 


430  DISQUISITIONS.  BIS.  Ill' 

In  the  fifth  book,  the  Ebionites  arc  mentioned  among 
hereticks  whose  doctrines  fall  all  together,  when  the  great 
scheme'of  man's  redemption  is  rightly  understood.  "  Our 
Lord,  redeeming  us  by  his  own  blood,  and  giving  his 
own  soul  for  our  soul,  and  his  body  for  our  bodies ; 
and  pouring  out  the  spirit  of  the  Father  for  the  ad  union 
and  communion  of  God  with  men,  bringing  God  down 
to  men  by  the  spirit ;  and  again,  by  his  incarnation, 
raising  man  to  God ;  and  in  his  advent,  actually  and 
assuredly  conferring  on  us  incorruptibility,  by  commu- 
nion with  God  ;  the  doctrines  of  hereticks  fall  altogeth- 
er ;  for  they  are  vain,  who  say  that  his  appearance  was 
phantastiek. — The  Valentinians  therefore  are  vain,  who 
hold  this  doctrine, — the  Ebionites  also  are  vain,  not  re- 
ceiving the  union  of  God  and  man  by  faith,  &c."* 

The  only  use  which  Dr  Priestley  makes  of  this  pas- 
sage is,  to  take  the  clause  relating  to  the  Ebionites  by 
itself,  and  to  remark,  that  "  the  harshest  epithet  which 
Irenaeus  here  applies  to  that  sect,  is  that  of  Vani;  which, 
considering  the  manner  of  the  ancients,  he  says,  is  cer- 
tainly very  moderate  :"f  but  however  moderate  he  may 
think  this  epithet,  had  he  attended  to  the  context,  he 
would  have  seen  that  it  is  the  very  same  epithet,  which 
Irenseus  in  this  same  place  applies  to  the  Docetss,  the 
Valentinians,  and  the  most  impious  of  the  Gnosticks : 


*  Suo  igitur  sanguine  redimente  DOB  Domino,  et  dante  animam  suam  pro  nostril, 
aniraa,  et  carnem  suam  pro  nostris  carnibus,  et  effundente  Spiritum  Patris  in  ad- 
unitionem  et  communionem  Dei  et  hominum,  ad  homines  quid  cm  deponeute  Deum 
per  Spiritum,  ad  Deum  autem  rursus  imponente  hominem  per  suam  incarnationem, 
et  firme  et  vere  in  soo  adventu  donante  nobis  incorruptelam,  per  communionem 
qux  est  ad  Deum ;  perierunt  omnes  h»reticorum  doctrinse.  Vaoi  autem  sunt  qui 
putative  dicunt  eum  apparuisse— — Vani  igitur  qui  a  Valentino  sunt,  hoc  dogma- 

tizantes Vani  autem  et  Ebionsei,  unitionem  Dei  et  Hourinus  per  fidem  nen  re- 

cipientes  in  suam  animam.  Lib.  5,  cap.  i. 

|  First  Letters,  p.  33. 


$rs.  m.  DISQUISITIONS, 

it  should  seem  therefore,  that  it  is  a  term  of  more  severe 
reproach  than  Dr  Priestley  apprehends :  it  imports 
indeed,  that  they  to  whom  it  is  applied,  were  persons 
lecome  vain  in  their  imaginations;  cherishing  opin- 
ions void  of  foundation  in  Scripture  and  in  truth;  such 
as  arose  out  of  a  misapprehension  of  the  whole  scheme 
of  revealed  religion.  And  whatever  the  particular  sense 
of  this  epithet  may  be,  the  manner  in  which  the  men- 
tion  of  the  Ebionites  is  introduced,  shows  that  they  arc 
mentioned,  as  affording  one  instance  of  hereticks  of  that 
description. 

In  another  passage  of  this  fifth  book,  Irenseus  says  of 
hereticks  in  general,  that  "  they  are  unlearned ;  ignorant 
of  the  divine  dispensations,  particularly  of  the  scheme 
respecting  man  ;  blind  to  the  truth  ;  and  that  they  con- 
tradict their  own  salvation."  This  general  charge,  he 
illustrates  and  confirms,  by  specifying  the  particular 
absurdities  of  different  sects ;  "  Some,"  he  says,  "  in- 
troducing  another  Father  beside  the  Demiurgus  :  some 
again,  saying  that  the  world  and  the  substance  of  it, 
were  made  by  certain  angels  :  some,  that  the  substance 
of  the  world  sprang  up  from  itself,  and  is  self- produced, 
far  separate  from  him  who,  according  to  them  is  the 
Father  :  some,  that  it  took  its  substance  from  corruption 
and  ignorance,  being  among  the  things  within  the  Fath- 
er :  some  treat  the  doctrine  of  our  Lord's  visible  advent 
with  contempt,  not  admitting  the  incarnation  :  some,  ig- 
norant of  the  dispensation  of  the  Virgin,  say,  that  he 
was  begotten  by  Joseph,  Some,  5fc."* 


*  Indocti  omnes  hseretici,  et  ignorantes  dispositiones  Dei,  et  inscii  ejus  qu»  est 
aecundum  hominem  dispensations,  quippe  ccecutientes  circa  veritatem,  ipsi  SUK 
•oatrRdicttUt  wduti,  alii  quidem  alterum  intcoducentes,  prseter  Demiurgum  patrem. 


DISQUISITIONS.  £1S.  Iff. 

Dr  Priestley  "  once  thought"*  that  in  this  passage 
the  Ebionites  were  included  in  the  appellation  of  here- 
ticks  ;  as  indeed  any  one  would  think,  who  could  ex- 
plain  the  grammatical  construction  of  the  sentence,  in 
every  clause  of  which  heretici  [hereticks]  is  understood 
as  the  substantive  to  be  joined  with  Mil  [some]  :  they 
therefore,  who  maintained  that  our  Lord  was  literally 
and  naturally  Joseph's  son,  are  here  expressly  called 
*'  Some  hereticks  :"  but  Dr  Priestley  has  reconsidered 
the  passage ;  and  perceiving  how  strongly  the  natural 
sense  of  it  makes  against  him,  he  has  found  himself  mis- 
taken in  that  construction  of  it:  he  says,  "  as  Cerinthus 
and  Carpocrates,  and  other  Gnosticks,  denied  the  mira- 
culous conception  as  well  as  the  Ebionites  ;  and  all  the 
rest  of  this  description,  both  before  and  after  this  cir- 
cumstance, evidently  belongs  to  the  Gnosticks  only ;  and 
as  in  no  other  place  whatever,  does  he  comprehend 
them  in  his  definition  of  heresy ;  it  is  natural  to  con- 
clude, that  he  had  no  view  to  the  Ebionites  even  here, 
but  only  to  those  Gnosticks  who,  in  common  with  them^ 
denied  the  miraculous  conception."!  This  conclusion 
might  indeed  be  somewhat  more  natural  than  it  is,  if 
the  passage  really  were,  what  Dr  Priestley,  when  he 
calls  it  «  this  description,"  would  represent  it  to  be, — 
a  description  of  one  sect  by  various  characters  :  for,  in 
that  case  it  might  be  said,  that  all  the  parts  of  the  de- 
scription must  be  united,  to  make  up  the  complete  char- 


Alii  autem  ab  angelis  quibusdam  dicentes  factura  esse  munduwa,  et  substantiana 
ejus.  Alii  quidem  porro  et  longe  separatum  ab  eo,  qui  est  secundura  ipsos,  patrr, 
a  semetipsa  floruisse,  et  esse  ex  se  natam  Alii  autem  in  his  quce  continentur  a 
patre,  de  labe  et  ignorantia  substantiam  habuisse.  Alii  autem  manifestum  adven- 
turn  domiui  content nunt,  incartionem  ejus  non  recipientes.  Alii  autem  rursus  igno- 
rantes  rirgmis  dispensationem,  ex  Joseph  dicuut  eum  generatum.  Lib.  5.  cap.  \\\. 
*  Second  Letters,  p.  57.  f  Ibid,  p.  58. 


J0/,y.  777.  DISQUISITIONS. 

acter  of  an  heretick.  But  the  passage  is  plainly  au 
enumeration  of  different  sects,  to  which  the  name  of 
hereticks,  and  the  charge  of  ignorance  and  blindness 
belong  in  common ;  an  enumeration  describing  each 
by  its  particular  error.  This  appears,  not  only  from 
the  grammatical  structure  of  the  period,  in  which  the 
repetition  of  Alii,  Alii,  Alii,  §*c.  Some,  Some,  Some  ; 
distinguishes  and  enumerates,  and  hath  no  other  force  ; 
but  still  more  evidently  from  this  circumstance  :  that  the 
opinions  mentioned  in  the  different  clauses  are,  in  some 
instances,  manifestly  repugnant ;  insomuch  that  they 
could  not  all  be  maintained  by  the  same  persons  :  thus 
the  second,  third,  and  fourth  clauses,  mention  contra- 
dictory opinions  about  the  origin  of  the  visible  world ; 
and  the  "  some  hereticks"  who  held  any  one  of  these 
opinions,  must  have  been  a  different  set  from  the  "  some 
hereticks"  who  held  another :  and  indeed  that  they  were 
different,  is  clearly  expressed  in  the  Latin  words  ;  for  1 
have  been  favourable  to  Dr  Priestley,  in  rendering  the 
repeated  Alii,  Seme,  and  Some,  and  some, :  the  proper 
rendering  would  be,  Some,  Others,  Others,  &c.  In  this 
enumeration  of  heresies,  the  error  ascribed  to  each,  is 
alleged  as  an  instance  of  the  ignorance  of  that  sect,  of 
their  blindness  to  the  truth,  and  their  opposition  to  their 
own  salvation.  The  enumeration  being  made  in  proof 
of  that  general  charge,  it  is  natural  to  suppose,  that  each 
sect  is  described  by  that  error,  which,  of  all  their  absurd 
opinions,  was  the  fittest  for  the  purpose  of  that  proof, 
the  clearest  instance  of  their  ignorance  and  blindness, 
and  their  contradicting  of  their  own  salvation :  the  par- 
ticular error  therefore  mentioned  in  each  clause,  is  not 
indeed  by  itself  a  definition  of  heresy,  but  it  is  by  itself 
a  sure  mark  of  a  heretick  ;  by  which,  every  oni  main. 

55 


DISQUISITIONS.  SIS.  Ill- 

taining  that  opinion,  might  be  known  to  come  under  that 
general  character.  One  of  these  marks  of  a  heretick,  is 
the  opinion,  that  our  Lord  was  literally  and  naturally 
the  son  of  Joseph :  all  therefore  were  hereticks  in  the 
judgment  of  Irenseus,  upon  whom  that  mark  was  to  be 
found ;  whether  they  were  Oerinthians,  Carpoc ratiaus, 
or  Ebionites — If  this  was  a  mark  that  might,  in  the 
judgment  of  Irenseus,  convict  a  Carpocratian  or  Oerin- 
thian,  why  should  it  not  equally  in  his  judgment,  con- 
vict the  Ebionites?  because,  in  the  Cerinthians  and 
Carpocratians,  Dr  Priestley  will  say,  this  opinion  was 
blended  with  impieties  which  were  indeed  heretical : 
But  this  is  to  place  the  mark  of  the  heresy  in  the  judg- 
ment of  Irenseus,  not  in  the  circumstance  which  he  ex- 
pressly mentions  as  the  mark,  but  in  others  which  he 
suppresses  :  a  mode  of  interpretation,  by  which  every 
writer  may  be  brought  to  say,  whatever  his  expositor 
shall  be  pleased  to  say  for  him. 

"  If  there  be  any  other  passage  in  Irenseus,  in  which 
he  calls,  or  seems  to  call,  the  Ebionites  hereticks,"*  Dr 
Priestley  declares  he  hath  overlooked  it :  he  hath  then 
overlooked  a  very  remarkable  passage  in  the  third  book, 
the  mention  of  which  I  have  reserved  for  this  place. 
Irenseus,  speaking  of  the  universal  credit  and  author- 
ity of  the  gospels,  says,  that  "  even  hereticks  bear  wit- 
ness to  it,  since  each  of  them  endeavours  to  confirm 
his  own  doctrines  by  proofs  from  those  writings  :  for  the 
Ebionites,  using  only  the  gospel  according  to  St  Mat- 
thew, are  by  that  convicted  of  error  in  their  notions 
of  our  Lord  :  Marcion,  cutting  off  much  of  the  gospel 
according  to  St  Luke,  may  be  proved  a  blasphemer 


*  Se«ond  Letters  p.  58. 


DIS.  in,  WSQUISITIONS.  435 

against  the  only  God,  from  the  parts  "which  he  re- 
tains, #c.»* 

As  Dr  Priestley  mentions  a  definition  of  heresy  given 
by  Irenaeus,  in  terms  which  exclude,  or  at  least  com- 
prehend not  the  Ebionites,f  I  shall  just  take  the  liberty 
to  suggest,  that  he  might  confer  an  obligation  upon  the 
learned  world,  if  he  would  be  pleased  to  give  informa- 
tion, in  what  part  of  the  whole  work  of  Irenseus  that 
definition  may  be  found. 

Meanwhile  it  appears,  that  the  Ebionites  are  repeat, 
edly  mentioned  by  Irenaeus,  and  never  mentioned  but 
as  hereticks  :  when  any  heavy  charge  against  heretickc 
is  to  be  confirmed  by  particular  instances,  the  Ebionitec 
seldom  are  forgotten  :  in  the  first  book,  they  appear  in  a 
list  of  heretical  sects,  as  one  instance  among  many,  con- 
firming  the  author's  general  assertion,  that  all  the  here- 
lical  sects  of  his  own  and  the  preceding  age,  had  their 
root  and  origin  in  the  doctrines  of  Simon  Magus  :  in  the 
third  book,  they  are  mentioned  as  one  instance  of  here- 
ticks, who,  rejecting  the  greater  part  of  the  four  gospels, 
contribute  to  the  general  evidence  of  the  authenticity 
and  credit  of  those  writings,  by  their  solicitude  to  build 
their  particular  opinions  upon  the  parts  which  they  re. 
ceivc,  and  yet  are  convicted  of  error  in  those  opinions  by 
those  very  parts  to  which  they  appeal.  In  another  pas- 
sage of  the  third  book,  they  are  described  as  persons  in  a 


*  Tanta  est  autem  cirea  evangelia  h»c  firmitas,  ut  et  ipsi  hrretici  testimonium 
reddant  eis,  et  ex  ipsis  egrediens  onus  quisque  eorum  conetur  suam  confirmare 
doctrinam.  Ebionsei  etenim,  eo  evangelic  quod  est  secundum  Matthseum  solo 
Utentes,  ex  ilio  ipso  convincuater  non  recte  presumentes  de  domino.  Marcion 
autem  id  quod  est  secundum  Lucam  eircumcidens,  ex  his  qute  adhuc  servantur 
penes  eum,  blaspheraus  in  solum  existeRtem  Deura  ostenditur.  Lib.  3.  cap.  xi. 

t  Second  Letters,  p.  58. 


pis  m 


state  of  impenitence  and  hardened  infidelity,  lying 
the  dreadful  sentence  of  eternal  damnation  :  in  the  fourth 
book  their  sect  is  mentioned  among  those,  whom  the  spi- 
ritual disciple,  i.  e  the  sound  believer,  will  judge  :  in  the 
fifth  book,  they  are  mentioned  among  hereticks  whose 
doctrines  are  demolished  all  in  the  lump,  and  at  one  blow,  . 
by  being  contrasted  with  the  scheme  of  man's  redemp- 
tion truly  stated  :  and  in  another  passage  of  the  same 
book,  their  distinguishing  tenet  of  the  mere  humanity  of 
our  Lord,  is  alleged  as  an  instance  of  the  ignorance  and 
blindness  of  hereticks,  and  of  the  forwardness  of  such 
persons  to  oppose  their  own  salvation. 

Of  the  truth  of  that  remark  of  Dr  Priestley's  which 
provoked  this  long  disquisition,  that  the  Ebioniles  in 
Jrena&us's  large  work  "  are  again  and  again  character- 
ized by  him,  in  such  a  manner  as  makes  it  evident,  that 
even  he  did  not  consider  them  as  hereticks,  and  that  ha 
never  calls  them  by  that  name  ;  of  the  truth  of  this  re- 
mark, and  of  the  qualifications  of  the  man  who  could 
make  it,  and  take  credit  to  himself  that  he  had  been  the 
first  to  make  it,  to  enlighten  the  age  upon  points  of  eccle- 
siastical antiquity  ;  let  the  intelligent  reader  now  form  kis 
own  judgment. 


#is.  ir.  BisQuismoNs.  4.37 


DISQUISITION  FOURTH. 

Of  the  sentiments  of  the  fathers  and  others,  concerning 
the  eternal  origination  of  the  Son,  in  the  necessary 
energies  of  the  paternal  intellect. 

IN  a  subject  so  far  above  the  comprehension  of  the 
human  mind,  as  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  must  be  con- 
fessed to  be  in  all  its  branches,  extreme  caution  should 
be  used,  to  keep  the  doctrine  itself,  as  it  is  delivered  in 
God's  word,  distinct  from  every  thing  that  hath  been 
devised  by  man,  or  that  may  even  occur  to  a  man's  ovva 
thoughts  to  illustrate  it,  or  explain  its  difficulties.  Every 
one  who  hath  ever  thought  for  any  length  of  time  upon 
the  subject,  cannot  but  fall  insensibly  and  involuntarily 
upon  some  way  or  other,  of  representing  the  thing  to 
bis  own  mind  :  and  if  a  man  be  ever  so  much  upon  his 
guard,  to  check  the  licentiousness  of  imagination,  and 
bridle  an  irreverent  curiosity  upon  this  holy  subject ; 
yet,  if  he  read  what  others  have  written,  orthodox  or 
hereticks,  he  will  find  opinions  proposed  with  too  much 
freedom  upon  the  difficulties  of  the  subject ;  and  among 
different  opinions,  he  cannot  but  form  some  judgment, 
of  the  different  degrees  of  probability  with  which  they 
are  severally  accompanied  ;  nor  can  he  so  far  command 
himself,  as  not  in  some  measure  to  embrace  the  opinion 
which  seems  the  most  probable.     In  this  manner,  every 
one  who  meddles  at  all  with  the  subject,  will  be  apt  to 
form  a  solution  for  himself,  of  what  seem  to  him  the 


438  DISQUISITIONS.  ns.  w. 

principal  difficulties :  but  since  it  must  be  confessed, 
that  the  human  mind  in  these  inquiries,  is  groping  in  the 
dark  every  step  that  she  ventures  to  advance,  beyond 
the  point  to  which  the  clear  light  of  revelation  reaches  ; 
the  probability  is,  that  all  these  private  solutions  are  in 
different  ways  and  in  different  degrees,  but  all  in  some 
way  and  in  some  degree  erroneous ;  and  it  will  rarely 
happen,  that  the  solution  invented  by  one  man,  will 
suit  the  conceptions  of  another.  It  were  therefore  to  be 
wished,  that  in  treating  this  mysterious  subject,  men 
would  not  in  their  zeal  to  illustrate  what,  after  their 
utmost  efforts,  must  remain  in  some  parts  incomprehen- 
sible, be  too  forward  to  mix  their  private  opinions  with 
the  publick  doctrine.  Many  curious  questions  were 
moved,  by  the  hereticks  of  antiquity,  and  are  now  re- 
vived by  Dr  Priestley,  about  the  nature  and  the  limit  of 
the  Divine  generation  :  why  the  Father  generates  but 
one  Son?  Why  that  Son  generates  not  another?  Why 
the  generation  is  not  infinite  ? — Instead  of  answering 
such  questions,  it  seems  to  me  that,  except  when  the  ne- 
cessity may  arise,  as  indeed  it  too  often  will,  of  "  an- 
swering a  fool  according  to  his  folly,"  it  should  be  a 
point  of  conscience  with  every  writer  to  keep  any  parti- 
cular opinions  he  may  have  formed,  as  much  as  possi- 
ble out  of  sight,  that  divine  truth  may  not  be  debased 
with  a  mixture  of  the  alloy  of  human  error,  and  that 
controversies  may  not  be  raised  upon  points,  in  which 
no  man  or  set  of  men  can  be  authorized  or  qualified,  to 
prescribe  to  the  belief  of  others.  Upon  these  principles, 
I  should  wish  to  decline  all  dispute  upon  the  metaphy- 
sical difficulties  of  the  subject,  even  with  an  adversary 
better  qualified  than  1  take  Dr  Priestley  to  be  for  such 
discussions  :  I  should  think  indeed,  that  I  had  already 


DIS.  IT.  DISQUISITIONS.  439 

been  guilty  of  an  indiscretion,  in  the  avowal  that  I  have 
made  in  my  Charge,*  of  my  own  opinion  about  the 
manner  in  which  the  Son's  eternal  existence,  without 
any  diminution  of  its  own  necessity,  may  be  connected 
with  the  Father's,  were  it  not,  that  what  1  am  there  at- 
tempting to  illustrate,  is  not  so  much  the  Scripture  doc- 
trine itself,  as  the  manner  in  which  that  doctrine  was 
understood  by  the  Platonizing  fathers. 

I  said,  and  I  still  say,  that  it  was  their  common  pria- 
ciple,  "  that  the  existence  of  the  Son  flows  necessarily 
from  the  Divine  Intellect  exerted  on  itself  :f  I  showed 
how  the  Son's  eternity  will  follow  from  this  principle ; 
and  I  discovered,  what  indeed  I  might  have  concealed, 
that  I  myself  concur  in  this  principle  with  the  Plato- 
nists  ;  for  I  said,  that  "  it  seems  to  me  to  be  founded  in 
Scripture'':): — by  which  I  meant  not  to  assert,  that  it  is 
go  expressly  declared  in  Scripture,  that  I  would  under- 
take to  prove  it  by  the  Scriptures  to  others,  in  the  same 
manner  that  I  would  undertake  to  prove  that  the  world 
was  created  by  Jesus  Christ ;  or  that  the  one,  like  the 
other,  ought  to  be  made  a  branch  of  the  publick  confes- 
sion of  the  church  ;  or  that  the  belief  or  disbelief  of  this 
particular  principle,  is  a  circumstance  that  may  in  the 
least  affect  the  integrity  of  any  Christian's  faith ;  it  was 
not  alleged  as  a  principle,  on  which  I  meant  at  all  to 
rest  the  credit  of  the  Scripture  doctrine  ;  it  was  mention- 
ed only  as  a  principle  which,  true  or  false,  was  embra- 
ced by  a  certain  set  of  writers,  and  serves  to  explain 
certain  things  said  by  them,  which  without  it  are  unin- 
telligible, or  at  least  liable  to  misinterpretation.  At  the 
same  time,  I  discovered  my  own  opinion  about  this  prin- 

*  Charge  IV.  sect  5.  f  Ibid.  $  Ibid. 


DISQUISITIONS.  DIS.  IT 

ciple,  that  I  think  it  true,  or  likely  to  be  true ;  for  it 
seems  (that  is  the  word  I  used)  to  be  founded  in  Scrip- 
ture :  many  phrases  of  holy  writ  seem  to  me  to  allude 
to  it ;  and  to  those  who  first  thought  of  it,  I  doubt  not, 
but  that  the  same  allusions  seemed  couched  in  the  same 
phrases  :  yet  I  will  not  undertake  to  teach  every  one,  to 
read  the  same  sense  in  the  same  expressions.  When  I 
showed,  that  from  this  principle  once  admitted,  a  strict 
demonstration  might  be  drawn  of  the  eternity  of  tha 
second  person,  it  was  not  that  I  set  any  value  upon  that 
demonstration,  as  adding  in  the  least  degree  to  the  cer- 
tainty of  the  Scripture  doctrine — upon  such  points,  the 
evidence  of  Holy  Scripture  is,  indeed,  the  only  thing 
that  amounts  to  proof :  the  utmost  that  reasoning  can 
do,  is  to  lead  to  the  discovery,  and,  by  God's  grace,  to 
the  humble  acknowledgment  of  the  weakness  and  insuf- 
ficiency of  reason  ;  to  resist  her  encroachments  upon  tha 
province  of  faith;  to  silence  her  objections  and  cast 
down  imaginations,  and  prevent  the  innovations  and  re- 
finements of  philosophy  and  vain  deceit.  Had  philoso- 
phical reasoning,  upon  points  of  express  revelation, 
been  held  as  cheap  by  Dr  Priestley  as  it  is  by  me,  the 
present  controversy  never  had  arisen  :  but  this  demon- 
stration of  the  Son's  eternity  was  produced,  for  no  other 
purpose,  but  to  show  the  disagreement  beetween  the  im- 
mediate consequences  of  the  principle,  from  which  it 
was  deduced,  and  certain  notions  which  Dr  Priestley 
would  ascribe  to  those  who  held  that  principle  :  but  Dr 
Priestley,  mistaking  for  an  illustration  of  Scripture, 
what  is  only  an  illustration  of  writers  whose  meaning 
had  been  perverted  by  him,  conceiving  that  the  whole 
Catholick  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  would  be  confuted, 
if  a  certain  principle,  which,  being  admitted,  might 


.  IV.  DISQUISITIONS, 


441 

furnish  a  demonstrative  proof  of  a  particular  part  of  it, 
might  be  shown  to  be  without  foundation,  calls  upon  me 
in  the  seventh  of  his  First  Letters,*  to  "  show  what  it 
is  in  the  Scriptures,  or  indeed  in  the  fathers,  that  gives 
any  countenance  to  that  curious  piece  of  reasoning." 
In  another  part  of  the  same  letter  he  tells  me,  that  "  in 
reading  my  attempt  to  explain  the  doctrine  of  the  Trin- 
ity [so  he  calls  it],  he  fancies  himself  got  back  to  the 
darkest  of  the  dark  ages,  or  at  least,  that  he  is  reading 
Peter  Lombard,  Thomas  Aquinas,  or  Duns  Scotus."t 
In  his  Second  Letters,  waxing  confident  by  my  neglect, 
which  he  interpreted  as  a  cowardly  desertion  of  my  ar- 
gument, he  is  louder  in  his  challenge,  and  more  stout 
in  his  defiance  :  upon  every  occasion  of  these  challenges 
and  calls,  of  which  sometimes  the  Dean  of  Canterbury, 
sometimes  I)r  White,  sometimes  Bishop  Prettyman, 
sometimes  I  myself  have  the  honour  to  be  the  object, — 
upon  every  such  occasion,  but  particularly  on  this,  his 
tone  reminds  me  of  the  strutting  actor  on  the  stage : 

Clifford  of  Cumberland,  'tis  Warwick  calls, 
And  if  thou  dost  not  hide  thee  from  the  bear, 
Now,  when  the  angry  trumpet  sounds  alarum ; 
Clifford,  I  say,  come  forth  and  fight  \vith  rue* 
Proud  Northern  Loixl  •  •    • 

Warwick  is  hoarse  with  calling  thee  to  arms. 

"  I  challenge  him,"  he  says,  "  to  produce  any  au- 
thority whatever,  ancient  or  modern,  for  that  opinion  of 
the  origin  of  the  Son  from  the  Father's  contemplation  of 
his  own  perfections."!  In  another  place,  he  speaks  of 
it  as  "  my  own  peculiar  notion."  He  expresses  "great 
mortification/'  that  in  my  Letters  in  Reply  to  his  First 


First  Letters,  p.  78.  :  >>J.  p.  99.  .  s,  p.  31, 


'.  /Jr. 

Letters,  "  lie  found  not  one  gleam  more  of  light  on  this 
curious  subject."*  He  reminds  me  of  his  most  mag- 
nanimous "  CHALLENGE  to  produce  any  authority  for  it, 
except  what  may  exist  in  my  own  imagination."!  He 
makes  no  doubt  but  that,  had  it  been  possible  for  me  to 
give  an  answer,  I  should  have  answered.J 

As  for  the  question  about  the  opinion  itself,  how  far 
it  may  be  reasonable  or  unreasonable,  how  far  the  al- 
lusion to  it  may  be  real  or  imaginary,  which  I  think  I 
perceive  in  some  scriptural  phrases,  no  challenge  of  Dr 
Priestley's,  no  call,  taunt,  defiance,  insult,  will  move 
me  from  my  vow  of  silence.  But  upon  the  question  of 
fact,  concerning  my  own  exclusive  property  in  whatever 
there  may  be  of  truth  or  falsehood  in  the  notion,  I  think 
myself  more  at  liberty,  and  feel  more  stomach  for  the 
contest :  I  cannot  indeed  resist  the  temptation  which  Dr 
Priestley's  challenge  "  to  produce  any  authority  what- 
ever, ancient  or  modern,"  presents,  to  seize  the  occasion 
of  strengthening  the  proof  of  my  main  point,  by  ex- 
hibiting in  its  true  light  an  instance,  which,  more  per- 
haps than  any  other  singly  taken,  evinces  Dr  Priest- 
ley's ignorance  of  the  religious  opinions  of  every  age, 
and  shows  how  much  the  oldest  things,  to  him,  are 
novelties. 

The  fathers,  it  must  be  confessed,  were  in  general 
very  properly  reserved  and  shy,  when  they  were  di- 
rectly pressed  with  questions,  about  the  manner  in 
which  the  existence  of  the  three  Divine  Persons  is  con- 
nected :  at  the  same  time,  the  analogy,  which  the  Pla- 
tonizing  fathers  in  particular,  suppose  between  the  rela- 
tion of  the  Father  to  his  Word,  and  the  relation  of  every 

*  Second  Letters,  p.  135.  f  lbid-  t  lbid-  P- 13*: 


JT-  DISQUISITION. 

man's  mind  to  its  own  thoughts,  so  necessarily  implies 
this  principle  concerning  the  Son's  origination,  that  with 
this  principle,  as  a  key,  what  they  say  upon  the  subject 
is  very  intelligible  ;  and  without  this  key,  impenetrably 
obscure  :  insomuch,  that  to  me  it  is  matter  of  astonish- 
ment, that  any  one  can  read  some  of  the  passages,  which 
Dr  Priestley  himself  hath  produced  from  Athenagoras, 
Tatian,  Tertullian,  and  others,  and  not  perceive  that 
this  notion  was  common  to  all  those  writers,  and  is 
the  principle  upon  which,  all  they  have  said  upon  the 
subject  rests.  But  if  the  sentiments  of  the  fathers  upou 
this  abstruse  point,  were  not  to  be  collected  with  certain- 
ty from  the  tenor  of  their  reasoning,  and  from  their  lan- 
guage, St  Basil  and  St  Cyril  are  sufficiently  explicit : 
St  Basil,  when  he  says  that  the  Son  of  God  is  called 
the  Aoy»f,  "  to  show  that  he  came  forth  from  intellects  :"* 
which  he  endeavours  to  illustrate  by  the  example,  so 
generally  in  use  among  the  writers  of  antiquity,  of  the 
human  mind  producing  an  image  of  itself  in  its  own 
thoughts.  St  Cyril,  when  he  says,  that  "  if  any  one 
would  investigate  the  manner  of  that  generation,  he 
ought  to  consider  the  fructifications  of  intellect,  and  to 
endeavour  rather  to  compare  with  them  [than  with 
physical  propagations]  the  generation  of  the  Word  ; 
and  not  to  say,  that  God  is  less  capable  of  generating 
ihan  body,  because  he  generates  not  in  a  corporeal 
way  :  that  the  human  intellect  generates  good  thoughts, 
must  necessarily  be  confessed  :  if  it  be  impious  to  sup- 
pose that  the  human  intellect  is  unfruitful,  how  much 
more  absurd  to  think,  that  the  Supreme  Intellect  should 


ts*  f&jfitt  c?<s»  fit  N#  7r§3/tf.v---.    Ho  mi  I.  in  verba  ilia  w  In  Prm- 
era*:  mbum."    T<?m.  i.  p.  '<">$, 


DISQUISITIONS.  j)lft.  W. 

be  unproductive,  and  to  deprive  it  of  its  proper  fructifi- 
cation/7* In  these  words,  St  Cyril  evidently  places 
the  generative  faculty  (if  the  expression  may  be  allow- 
ed) of  the  Divine  nature,  in  the  necessary  fecundity  of 
intelligence.  In  another  part  of  the  same  discourse  he 
says,  that  it  is  to  be  conceived,  that  "  the  Son  is  in 
such  sort  begotten  of  the  Father,  as  wisdom  of  intel- 
lect."! And  again,  in  another  place,  he  illustrates  the 
intimate  union  of  the  Father  and  the  Son,  by  its  analogy 
to  the  union  between  the  human  intellect,  and  its  internal 

operations.^ 

From  the  fathers,  if  we  pass  to  the  schoolmen,  we 
shall  find  among  them  in  this,  as  in  most  subjects,  more 
philosophical  subtlety,  and  much  less  of  a  laudable  re- 
serve. With  them,  the  question  was  expressly  agita- 
ted, whether  the  Divine  generation  was  affected  by  in- 
tellect or  by  will :  if  by  intellect,  there  arose  a  second 
question,  from  which  they  had  not  the  modesty  to  ab- 
stain ;  what  the  object  of  the  intellect  might  be ;  wheth- 
er the  Divine  essence  simply,  as  Scotus  maintained,  or 
the  totality  of  the  Divine  nature,  in  the  essence,  the  per- 
sons, and  the  works  of  creation — which  was  the  notion 
of  Thomas  and  his  followers  :  and  for  this  unbounded 
curiosity  of  speculation,  they  are  justly  censured  by  Si- 
mon Episcopius  ;||  whose  censure  is  a  testimony,  which 


Sttv  TVS 


a>f  jra/xat  ytvvet.    r«vv«v  ^ujy  yctp  )utt 
TV;  AvS^ceTrivw  vxv  HW?«C  «tv  o^ucXo^yjUjusy  <ftaiMyi7(*w?  a.yci&ix.—~ti  TOIVUV  ttff&e  «TK> 
TC/V  etv&o&xivcv   vav   x.Zf>irGV  ax.  t%w-   •     Tag   ZK  eOsTTov  TGV  V7rt£  Trufix,  vav  AHA^' 
;.j>{A-,  Km  rnt  vrgmms  auflco  nai^refo^kt?  ean&gty.    Cyril  in  Thesauro.  torn.  v.  p.  45. 
edit.  Auberti. 

t   --  Ntt«?SSV  J/7»  7^«VV«T-8-A/   T6J>   vliV  IX.  TV  TTtt]^,  9S  ffOtyAV  Hi  VW. 

^  E*  o  «rd>^wnyec  v«f  &cc.  p.  31. 

||  Episcop.  lust.  lib.  ir.  sec.  11.  c.  3S. 


&1S.  IF.  DISQUISITIONS, 

Dr  Priestley  perhaps  will  regard,  that  such  opinions 
were  maintained,  and  such  questions  agitated. 

After  the  council  of  Trent,  this  peculiar  notion  of 
mine,  this  singular  conceit,  for  which  no  authority  what- 
ever  can  be  produced,  ancient  or  modern,  became  the 
publick  doctrine  of  the  church  of  Rome,  being  expressly 
asserted  in  the  rule  of  publick  teaching,  set  forth  by  the 
authority  of  that  council,  for  the  assistance  and  direction 
of  the  parochial  clergy,  under  the  title  of  Chatechismus 
ad  Parochos.  The  first  part  of  that  work,  is  an  expo- 
sition  of  the  apostles'  creed :  in  the  explanation  of  the 
first  article,  the  comment  upon  the  word  "patern,"  is 
closed  with  an  exhortation  to  the  true  believer,  to  pray 
without  intermission,  "  that  being  at  some  time  or  other 
admitted  into  the  eternal  tabernacles,  lie  may  be  thought 
worthy  to  be  allowed  to  see  what  that  wonderful  fecun- 
dity of  God  the  Father  is,  that  contemplating  and  ex- 
erting his  intelligence  upon  himself,  he  should  beget  a 
Son  the  exact  counterpart  and  equal  of  himself.*'*  In 
the  exposition  of  the  second  article,  upon  the  words 
"  Filium  ejus  wilcum,"  it  is  said,  "  That  of  all  simili- 
tudes that  are  usually  brought,  to  explain  the  manner 
and  way  of  the  eternal  generation,  that  seems  to  come 
the  nearest  to  the  thing,  which  is  taken  from  the  reflec- 
tion of  our  own  mind ;  upon  which  account  St  John 
calls  the  Son  the  Word :  for,  as  our  mind,  exercising 
its  intelligence  upon  itself,  forms  as  it  were  an  image  of 
itself,  which  divines  have  called  its  word ;  so  God,  so 
far  as  human  things  may  be  put  in  comparison  with  cli- 


,  Orct  sine  intermissione — ut  aliquando  in  seterna  tabernacula  recepliis  dignnr, 
sit  qui  videat,  quse  tantn  sit  Dei  Patris  fcecunditas,  ut  seipsum  tntitens  atque  inte!li* 
gen*  parcm  et  tequaletn  sibi  Filium  gignat.  Artie.  Prim,  sec,  xiv. 


DISQUISITION^  ])1S.  IV. 

vine,  exercising  intelligence  upon  himself,  generates  the 
eternal  Word."* 

This  however,  was  not  so  peculiarly  the  doctrine  of 
the  Roman  church,  but  that  it  had  its  advocates  among 
the  most  eminent  of  the  Protestant  divines.  Philip  Me- 
lancthon,  that  great  luminary  of  the  reformation,  was 
its  constant  and  strenuous  assertor ;  and  he  repeatedly 
resorts  to  it  as  a  principle,  for  the  explanation  of  the 
phraseology  of  Scripture.  Philip  Melancthon,  a  man 
with  whom  it  were  more  honourable  to  err,  than  to  be 
in  the  right  with  Socinus  or  Dr  Priestley,  thought  as  I 
think,  that  the  notion  was  founded  in  holy  writ :  he 
thought  it  indeed  so  clearly  implied  in  the  Scripture 
phrases,  that  he  was  less  scrupulous  than  I  would  be,  in 
asserting  it  as  a  part  of  the  Scripture  doctrine. 

In  his  Loci  Theologici,  he  says,  <*  the  Son  therefore 

is  an  image  generated  by  the  Father's  Thought 

The  eternal  Father,  contemplating  himself,  begets  a 
thought  of  himself  [or  a  conception  of  himself  in  his 
own  thoughts]  which  is  an  image  of  himself  never  van- 
ishing away,  but  subsisting,  the  essence  being  commu- 
nicated to  the  image. He  is  called  the  Word, 

because  he  is  generated  by  thought.  He  is  called  the 
Image,  because  thought  is  an  image  of  the  thing  thought 
iipon."f 


*  Ex  omnibus  autem,  quce  ad  indicandum  modum  rationcmque  seternse  gene- 
rationis  similitudines  afteruntur,  ilia  propius  ad  rem  ridetur  accedere,  qux  «b  animi 
nostri  cogitatione  sumitur;  quamobrem  sanctus  Joannes  Filium  ejus  verbum  ap- 
pellat.  Ut  enim  mens  nostra,  ae  ipsum  quodam  modo  inteliigens  sui  cffingit  ima- 
ginem,  quam  verbum  Theologi  dixerunt ;  ita  Deus,  quantum  tamen  divinis  hu- 
mana  conferri  possunt,  seipsum  intelligens,  verbum  selenium  geuerat  Artie. 
Secund.  sec.  xv. 

|  Est  igitur  imago  cogitatione  Patris  genita.— — — Pater  seternus  sese  iiitueiis 
giguit  cogitatioaem  sui,  qu«  est  imago  ipsius  non  evauescens,  sed  subsisted,  Cdii- 


.  tV.  DISQUISITIONS. 

Let  me  by  the  way  entreat  the  learned  reader,  to 
compare  these  sentences  of  Melaucthon  with  Tertul- 
lian's  fifth  chapter  against  Praxeag,  and  judge  for  him- 
self, whether  Tertullian  and  Melancthon  had  not  the 
same  view  of  the  subject. 

Again,  in  the  form  of  examination  of  candidates  for 
holy  orders,  Melancthon  says,  "  The  eternal  Son  is  the 
second  person  of  the  Divinity,  which  person  is  the  sub- 
stantial and  entire  image  of  the  eternal  Father,  which 
the  Father,  contemplating  and  considering  himself,  ge- 
nerates from  eternity."*  The  same  thing  is  repeated 
nearly  in  the  game  words,  in  his  definitions  of  appella- 
tions,f  and  again,  in  his  second  exposition  of  the  ISiccnc 
creed.  J 

In  his  first  exposition  of  the  Nicene  creed,  he  says, 
"  The  eternal  Father  is  a  divine  person,  eternal,  not 
sprung  of  any  other,  but  by  thought  upon  himself  gene- 
rating from  eternity  the  coeternal  Son,  his  own  image. 

The  Son  is  a  divine  person,  begotten  by  the  Fa- 

ther  thinking  upon  and  contemplating  himself. "\\ 

In  the  second  exposition,  he  says,  "  To  be  born, 
is  of  the  intelligent  power ;  because  the  Son  is  born  by 
thought."^ 


municata  ipsi  essentia.        •        Dieitur  As>cr,  quia  cogitatione  generatnr.    DicitQr 
imago,  quia  cogitatio  est  imago  rei  cogitatse.    Op.  Melanct  torn.  i.  p.  152. 

*  Filius  aeternus  est  secunda  persona  divinitatis,  quse  est  substantialis  et  Integra 
imago  caterni  Patris,  quam  Pater  sese  intuens  et  conriderans  ab  aetcrno  gignit. 
Opera  Melanct  torn.  i.  p.  307. 

t  Tom.  i.  p.  350.  4=  Tom.  ii.  p.  213,  and  p.  315. 

|j  Pater  setermis  est  persona  divina,  seterna,  non  nata  aliunde,  sed  cogitatione 
sui  gignens  ab  jeterno  Filium  coxternum,  imaginem  suara. Filius  est  per- 
sona divina  genita  a  Patre  cogitante  ac  iutueute  seipsum.  Symp.  Nicen.  De  Tri- 
bus  pcrsonis. 

§  Nasci  est  a  potentia  jntelligente ;  quia  Filius  cogitatione  nascitur.  Tom.  ii. 
p.  KS. 


DISQUISITIONS.  DIS.  iv. 

Ill  his  annotations  upon  the  gospel  for  the  feast  of 
the  nativity  he  says,  "  Basil  and  others  say,  that  the 
Son  is  called  the  Word,  because  he  is  the  image  of  the 
Father,  generated  by  the  Father  thinking  upon  him- 
self. For  the  Father  contemplating  himself,  generates 
a  thought,  which  is  called  the  Word  ;  which  thought  is 
the  image  of  the  Father ;  into  which  image  the  Father, 
if  we  may  so  speak,  transfuses  his  own  essence."* 

So  possessed  was  Melancthon  with  this  notion,  which 
Dr  Priestley,  learned  only  in  his  own  imaginations, 
conceives  to  have  been  first  hatched  in  my  brain,  ages 
since  the  good  Melancthon  fell  asleep,  that  upon  every 
occasion,  when  he  mentions  the  generation  of  the  Son, 
lie  introduces  this  notion  of  the  manner  of  it :  and  Me- 
lancthon, the  learned  reader  will  observe,  never  dream- 
ed that  in  this  he  was  setting  up  a  notion  of  his  own  : 
he  thought,  as  I  do,  that  the  fathers  entertained  the 
same  view  of  the  subject ;  and  that  this  view  of  the 
subject,  was  countenanced  by  the  phraseology  of  holy 
writ. 

Zanchius,  indeed,  an  orthodox  writer  of  great  piety 
and  learning,  speaks  of  this  same  notion  in  terms,  as 
it  may  seem,  of  strong  disapprobation  :  "  What  some, 
he  says,  as  the  schoolmen  write,  that  God  the  Father, 
by  seeing  and  considering  himself,  begot  the  Word, 
and  that  the  emanation  of  the  Son  from  the  Father, 
is  after  the  manner  of  an  emanation  of  intellect,  and 
other  things  of  that  kind,  which  have  no  proof  from 
the  word  of  God,  we  must  reject  them  as  rash  and 


*  Basilius  et  alii  dicunt,  Filium  dici  Aoyov  quia  sit  imago  Patris,  genita  a  Patre 
sese  cogitante.  Pater  enim  intuens  $e,  gignit  cogitationem,  quse  vocatur  verbum  } 
qu;e  cogitatio  est  imago  Patris,  in  quaiu  imaginem  Pater,  ut  ita  dicamus,  transfun- 
dit  auara  essentiam.  Tom.  iii.  p.  12. 


J)IS.  IV.  DISQUISITIONS. 

vain  ;  that  is  to  say,  if  the  thing  be  positively  asserted 
to  be."*  Zanchius  therefore,  were  he  now  living  to  be 
a  witness  of  this  controversy  between  Dr  Priestley 
and  ine,  would  have  taxed  me,  it  seems,  with  rashness 
and  presumption,  had  he  found  me  propounding  this 
notion  of  the  Divine  generation,  as  the  way  in  which  the 
thing  must  certainly  be  ;  but  he  would  have  little  ad- 
mired my  adversary's  learning,  or  commended  his  mo- 
desty, when  he  upbraids  me  as  a  setter  forth  of  new 
doctrines  of  my  own  coinage,  and  challenges  me  to  pro- 
duce any  authority  ancient  or  modern,  in  support  of  this 
opinion  :  Zanchius  well  knew,  though  the  thing  is  un- 
known to  Dr  Priestley,  that  the  authority  of  the  school- 
men, and  of  others,  is  on  the  side  of  the  opinion  :  and 
in  the  very  censure  which  he  passes  upon  the  doc- 
trine, he  acquits  all  of  his  own,  or  later  times,  of  the 
invention. 

But  in  truth,  this  learned  Calvinist  seems  to  have 
thought  no  worse  of  this  opinion,  than  I  myself  think 
of  it, — that  it  is  not  a  thing  to  be  too  positively  asserted 
so  to  be.  In  itself,  he  seems  to  have  thought  it  not 
improbable :  for,  in  another  part  of  his  wrorks,  lie  men- 
tions it  as  a  notion,  furnishing  the  best  answer  to 
those  who  would  deny  the  Son's  eternity,  upon  the 
principles  so  frequently  alleged  by  the  Ariaus  and 
other  Antitrinitarians,  that  that  which  is  begotten,  must 
always  have  a  later  beginning  of  its  existence  than 
that  which  begets ;  and  that  all  generation  is  effected 


*  Cseterum  quod  quidam,  ut  scholastic),  scribunt,  Deum  patrem  se  videndo  et 
considerando  genuisse  Aoyzvt  et  quod  cinauauo  Filii  a  Patre  est  secundum  etnana- 
tionem  intellectus,  et  alia  id  genus,  qu»  nullura  habent  ex  verbo  Dei  testimonium. 
rejicienda  uobis  sunt  tanquam  temeraria  et  vana ;  nempe  si  res  ita  se$e  ! 
asseveretur.    Zanchius  De  Tabus  Elohim.    Lib.  v.  c.  8. 

57 


DISQUISITIONS.  DJS.  if. 

by  motioQ  arid  change.  Such  objections  he  says,  may 
be  answered  by  analogies  taken  from  the  material 
world  :  the  sun  at  all  times  generates  rays  from  his 
own  body :  these  rays  are  emitted  without  any  change 
in  the  sun  himself — "  But  a  clearer  refutation/'  he 
says,  "  may  be  drawn  from  the  example  of  our  own 

incorporeal  intellect. Intellect,   in  the  energy  of 

intelligence  generates  another  quasi-intellect,  as  tlw 
philosophers  call  it,  like  unto  itself;  which  for  this 
reason  is  called  by  us,  a  conception  of  the  mind ;  by 
the  Platonists,  mind  generated  of  mind  ;  and  by  the 
fathers,  the  word  and  Aoy#c  of  the  mind.  And  this 
it  begetteth  within  itself.  And  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  intellect  actually  intelligent,  that  is,  which  is  truly 
intellect,  without  this  other  generated  intellect;  and 
the  parent  intellect  generates,  without  suffering  in  it- 
self any  change."*  Zanchius  suggests  these  philoso- 
phical topicks  of  reply,  to  philosophical  arguments 
against  the  eternity  of  God  the  Son.  This  analogy 
therefore,  between  the  Father's  generation  of  the  Son, 
and  the  mind's  generation  of  a  conception  of  itself  in 
thought,  he  esteemed  an  hypothesis  philosophically  pro- 
bable ;  which  might  be  very  properly  employed  to  con- 
vince  those  who,  upon  philosophical  grounds,  made  a 
difficulty  of  the  only  begotten  Son's  eternity,  that  what 
they  called  in  question  might  easily  be,  though  he 


*  Clarius  etiam  hsec  refutari  possunt  exemplo  intellectus  nostri  incorperei.— — 
Intellectus,  dum  intelligit,  gignit  (ut  philosophi  vocant)  aliura  quasi  intellectum, 
sibi  similem,  quern  hanc  ob  causam  nos  conceptum  mentis,  Platonic!  mentem 
genitam  a  mente,  Patres  verbum  et  A.oyov  mentis  appellarunt.  Et  ilium  gignit 
intra  se ;  et  nunquam  iutellectus  est  actu  intelligens,  et  ideo  vere  intellectus,  sine 
hoc  genito  altero  intellectu  :  et  quidem  erne  ulla  sui  mutatione  gignit.  Zanchh'-s 
DC  Natura  D^i.  Lib.  ii.  c,  T. 


D1S.  I?.  DISQUISITIONS. 

thought  it  presumptuous  in  any  one  to  assert  too  pos- 
itively, that  this  analogy  represents  the  way  in  which 
the  thing  actually  is. 

If  the  Calvinists  have  been  shy  of  resorting,  in  their 
disputes  with  Antitrinitarians,  to  the  arguments  which 
Zanchius  suggests  and  recommends,  1  take  the  reason, 
of  this  to  be,  that  the  analogy  on  which  those  arguments 
were  founded,  seemed  repugnant  to  an  opinion  which 
Calvin  himself  was  thought  to  hold  :  Calvin,  in  the 
heat  of  his  disputes  with  Valentinus  Gentilis  and  Blan- 
dratta,  was  carried  to  the  use  of  some  unguarded  ex- 
pressions which  seemed  to  imply,  that  the  existence  of 
the  Son  was  entirely  independent  of  the  Father's  :  he 
went  indeed,  so  far,  as  to  question  the  propriety  of  the 
expression  in  the  Niccne  creed,  "  God  of  God."  This 
notion  was  considered  as  a  dangerous  novelty,  and  gave 
much  alarm  to  some  of  the  most  eminent  divines  of  those 
times,  as  necessarily  terminating  in  one  or  the  other  of 
two  horrible  extremes :  Sabellianisra  on  the  one  hand, 
or  Tritheism  on  the  other :  it  was  treated  with  great 
severity  by  writers  of  the  Roman  church,  and  was 
strenuously  opposed,  though  with  much  moderation  and 
candour,  by  my  illustrious  predecessor  Bishop  Bull, 
among  ourselves,  and  in  Holland,  by  Arminius.  Beza, 
in  his  preface  to  Athanasius's  dialogues,  makes  the 
apology  of  Calvin ;  confessing  that  he  had  not  been 
sufficiently  circumspect  in  the  choice  of  expressions,  and 
alleging,  that  his  expressions  had  been  misunderstood ; 
which  I  take  indeed  to  be  the  truth.  It  seems  to  me, 
that  Calvin  meant  only  to  deny  that  the  Son  was  a 
contingent  being,  the  creature  of  the  Father  s  will ;  to 
assert  that  he  is,  strictly  speaking,  God ;  and  that  the 
existence  of  the  three  persons,  of  the  second  and  third 


DISQUISITIONS.  &1S.  IV- 

no  less  than  of  the  first,  is  contained  in  the  very  no- 
tion of  a  God,  when  that  notion  is  accurately  devel- 
oped. However,  his  words  were  otherwise  understood 
by  many  of  his  followers;  his  authority  gave  credit 
and  currency  to  an  error,  which  was  supposed  to  be 
his  doctrine,  and  the  notion  of  the  Son's  origination 
in  the  necessary  energies  of  the  paternal  intellect,  is 
rejected  by  many  of  the  Calviuists,  more  peremptorily 
than  by  Zanchius. 

The  church  of  England,  with  her  usual  caution,  hath 
abstained  from  giving  her  sanction  to  any  particular 
opinion,  concerning  the  manner  of  the  Divine  genera- 
tion. Of  her  divines,  some  have  embraced  the  opinion 
which  I  have  acknowledged  for  my  own,  (particularly 
Dr  Leslie,  in  his  Socinian  Controversy  Discussed,) 
and  a  great  majority  acknowledge  a  dependence  of  the 
Son's  existence  on  the  Father,  strenuously  asserting 
in  the  language  of  the  Nicene  creed,  that  the  Son  is 
"  God  of  God,"  But  some  of  no  inconsiderable  name, 
have  adopted  what  was  thought  to  be  Calvin's  doctrine, 
in  an  extent  to  which  I  think  with  Beza,  Calvin  himself 
never  meant  it  should  be  carried. 

Upon  the  whole,  I  trust  it  appears  that  this  singu- 
lar conceit  of  mine,  this  invention  for  which  I  am  chal- 
lenged to  produce  any  authority  ancient  or  modern,  is 
a  principle  that  was  tacitly  assumed  by  many  of  the 
fathers ;  openly  maintained  by  some ;  disputed  about 
by  the  schoolmen  ;  approved  by  the  church  of  Rome ; 
maintained  by  the  greatest  of  the  Lutheran  divines ; 
objected  to  by  the  Calvinists  as  a  point  of  doctrine, 
but  received  by  some  of  the  most  learned  of  that  per- 
suasion, as  at  least  a  probable  surmise.  About  the 
truth  of  the  opinion,  I  have  declared  that  I  will  not 


DIS.  IV.  DISQUISITIONS. 

dispute ;  and  I  shall  keep  my  word  :  but  Dr  Priestley's 
rash  defiance,  I  may  place  among  the  specimens  with 
which  his  history  and  his  letters  to  me  abound,  of  his 
incompetency  in  this  subject,  and  of  the  effrontery  of 
that  incurable  ignorance,  which  is  ignorant  even  of  its 
own  want  of  knowledge. 


DISQUISITION*.  BIS.  y. 


N  FIFTH, 

Of  Origen's  want  of  veracity. 

THE  defence  of  Origen's  veracity,  which  Dr  Priest- 
ley hath  attempted  to  set  up  in  the  second  of  his  Third 
Letters,  is  in  some  parts  so  weak,  and  in  others  so  dis- 
ingenuous, that  it  would  deserve  no  serious  reply,  if 
the  reader  might  be  considered  as  a  judge  before  whom 
Origen  was  arraigned,  who  would  be  obliged  by  his 
office  to  canvass  the  arguments,  and  weigh  the  evidence 
on  both  sides  with  a  scrupulous  attention,  in  order  to  a 
solemn  condemnation  or  acquittal  of  the  accused  party  : 
but  it  may  be  expected  of  a  controversial  writer,  to  save 
trouble  to  the  reader,  who  is  bound  to  no  such  official 
duty,  to  assist  him  in  forming  a  final  judgment  upon 
the  evidence  produced  on  either  side,  and  to  expose 
the  futility  of  argaments,  and  the  fallacy  of  assertions, 
which,  in  a  criminal  process  before  any  of  his  Ma- 
jesty's judges  of  assize,  might  safely  be  trusted  to  ex- 
pose themselves. 

The  work  of  Celsus  against  Christianity  being  lost, 
neither  the  plan  nor  the  matter  of  it  is  otherwise  to  be 
known,  than  by  what  may  be  gathered  from  Origen's 
answer.  It  appears  from  Origen,  that  it  was  a  com- 
position of  much  art,  and  highly  laboured  :  many  of 
Celsus's  objections  were  delivered  in  the  person  of  a 
Jew,  who  is  supposed  to  address  his  discourse,  first  to 
Jesus,  and  afterwards  to  the  Hebrew  Christians :  in  the 


VIS.  V.  DISQUISITIONS. 

discourse  addressed  to  the  Hebrew  Christians,  Celsus 
makes  his  Jew  upbraid  them  with  a  desertion  of  the 
Mosaick  law  :  to  this  reproach,  Origen,  in  vindication 
of  the  Hebrew  brethren,  gives  a  double  answer,  which 
1  have  shown  to  be  inconsistent  with  itself  in  the  two 
different  branches  :*  first  he  asserts,  that  the  Jews  be- 
lieving  in  Christ  had  not  renounced  their  Judaism :  upon 
occasion  of  this  assertion,  he  goes  into  a  discourse  of 
some  length,  about  St  Peter's  adherence  to  the  Mosaick 
law,  and  the  information  which  was  conveyed  to  that 
apostle,  in  a  vision  concerning  the  extinction  of  its  au- 
thority :  from  this  discourse,  he  runs  into  a  second  upon 
a  saying  of  our  Lord's,  which  he  expounds  as  an  »nig- 
matical  allusion  to  the  intended  abrogation  of  the  law  : 
and  when,  in  this  digressive  way,  he  hath  written  "about 
it  and  about  it,"  till  he  had  himself  forgotten,  or  might 
reasonably  trust  that  his  reader  would  have  forgotten, 
the  position  with  which  this  prolix  discourse  began,  he 
enters  upon  the  second  branch  of  his  defence  of  the  He- 
brew brethren,  in  which  he  flatly  contradicts  his  first 
assertion,  insulting  over  Celsus's  ignorance,  who  had 
not  made  his  Jew  distinguish  the  different  sects  of  the 
converted  Hebrews, — two  of  which  observed  the  law, 
and  one  of  which  had  to  all  intents  and  purposes 
abandoned  it.  I  have  given  this  passage  at  length  in 
my  Remarks  on  Dr  Priestley's  Second  Letters'!  and 
shall  not  tire  my  reader's  patience  with  a  needless  re- 
petition of  it. 

Dr  Priestley,  to  vindicate  Origen.from  the  charge  of 
Self-contradiction  in  this  instance,  hath  recourse  to  a 


*  Remarks  on  Dr  Priestley'f  Second  Letter*,  P.  II.  chap.  i.  sec.  6. 
t  Ibid. 


DISQUISITIONS.  D1S.  V. 

very  curious  piece  of  criticism.  He  bids  me  observe, 
that  Origen  contends  not  that  Celsus's  Jew,  had  he 
said  what  Origen  says  he  should  have  said,  would 
have  said  what  was  true,  but  what  was  plausible  :*  the 
same  critical  sagacity  that  struck  out  this  distinction, 
might  have  perceived,  that  the  want  of  plausibility  with 
which  Celsus's  Jew  is  taxed,  consisted  in  the  confound- 
ing of  distinctions  which  actually  existed  ;  and  that  the  ex- 
isting distinctions  which  Celsus's  Jew  confounded,  were 
the  distinctions  between  the  Hebrew  sects,  two  observ- 
ing the  law,  and  one  disusing  it  :  for  this  is  the  lan- 
guage of  Origen's  reproach  —  c«  How  confusedly  does 
Celsus's  Jew  speak,  when  he  might  have  said,  f£c." 
and  by  saying  so  have  avoided  the  imputation  of  con- 
fusion. 

The  plausibility,  of  the  want  of  which  Origec  com- 
plains in  the  discourse  of  Celsus's  Jew,  is  what  may  be 
called  poetical  plausibility  :  It  is  that  general  air  of 
truth,  which  a  writer  of  judgment  and  good  taste,  con- 
trives to  give  to  the  fable  of  a  drama,  by  an  attention  to 
the  peculiarities  of  times,  places,  manners,  and  charac- 
ters ;  a  neglect  of  which,  stamps  a  manifest  character  of 
clumsy  fiction  on  what  ought  to  seem  reality  ;  as  would 
be  the  case  in  any  serious  play,  in  which  the  Maid  of 
Orleans  should  be  seated  on  the  Delphick  tripod,  or 
Hugh  Peters  introduced,  maintaining  the  divine  rights 
of  kings  and  bishops  :  this  is  the  want  of  plausibility, 
with  which  Origen  taxes  Celsus  ;  he  says,  that  Celsus, 
with  all  his  great  pretensions  to  learning  and  taste, 
knew  not  the  common  rules  of  art  about  maintaining 
character  in  the  fiction  of  persons  :  T* 


*  Third  Letters  p.  10. 


DIS.  r.  DISQUISITIONS. 

xa/aror  TOTTM  TYIC  sr/waTOTo/ac.      He    made   Ills   Jew    say 

what  no  real  Jew  would  have  said, — that  the  Hebrew 
Christians  in  general  had  deserted  the  law  of  their  an- 
cestors :  this  no  Jew  would  have  said,  because  it  was  a 
downright  falsehood,  which  every  Jew  must  have  known 
to  be  such.  Had  Origen  stopt  short  here,  he  would  not 
have  himself  betrayed  the  want  of  truth  in  his  first  as- 
sertion, that  the  whole  body  of  the  Hebrew  Christians 
retained  the  observation  of  the  law  :  for  the  two  propo- 
sitions concerning  the  Hebrew  Christians,  that  they  had 
all  forsaken  their  law,  which  was  Celsus's  Jew's  asser- 
tion ;  and  that  none  of  them  had  forsaken  it,  which  was 
Origen's  ;  are  so  completely  opposite,  that  the  en'ire 
falsehood  of  the  one,  \vere  perfectly  consistent  with  the 
entire  truth  of  the  other  :  but  Origen,  unfortunately  for 
his  own  credit,  goes  on  to  tell  his  reader  what  Celsus's 
Jew  might  have  said  with  more  plausibility,  i.  e.  with 
more  propriety  of  character — more  consistently  with  a 
Jew's  knowledge  of  the  truth — that  is,  more  truly  :  so 
that  plausibility  and  truth,  in  this  use  of  the  word  plau- 
sibility, are  the  very  same  thing.  Had  Celsus  made  his 
Jew  reproach  the  Hebrew  converts,  not  as  he  did,  with 
a  general  desertion  of  their  law,  but  with  great  disagree- 
ments among  themselves  about  the  extent  and  duration 
of  its  authority,  and  the  respect  due  to  it  under  the 
Christian  dispensation ;  he  would  have  made  his  Jew 
speak  more  in  character,  because  he  would  have  spoken 
more  consistently,  with  what  every  Jew  must  have 
known  to  be  the  real  state  of  opinions,  among  the  Chris- 
tians of  the  circumcision.  Had  Celsus's  Jew  talked 
like  a  Jew  upon  this  subject,  he  would  not  have  said, 
that  all  the  Hebrew  brethren  were  deserters  of  their 
law  ;  but  he  might,  it  seems,  with  great  propriety  have 

58 


DISQUISITIONS.  DIS.  V. 

said,  that  some  of  them  had  forsaken  it.  This  had 
been  very  consistent  with  that  accurate  information, 
which  a  Jew  might  be  expected  to  possess  ;  consequent- 
ly, it  appears  that  Origen  should  not  have  said  that 
they  all  adhered  to  it ;  and  his  own  representation  of 
the  fact,  when  he  comes  to  state  it  accurately,  betrays 
the  falsehood  of  that  first  assertion. 

That  the  distinctions  which  Origen  says  Celsus's 
Jew  might  have  put  between  the  Hebrew  Christians, 
were  differences  really  subsisting  in  that  body  at  the 
time,  is  strongly  implied  in  the  form  of  the  expression, 
Iwtptnt  \i7Tnv ;  the  force  of  which  is  very  imperfectly 
rendered  in  my  translation  of  the  passage,  by  the  words 
"  when  he  might  have  said" — it  had  been  better  render- 
ed, «  when  he  had  it  to  say  :"  the  Greek  words  IwHptnc 
Im/x,  like  the  English  "  he  had  it  to  say,"  are  applicable 
only  to  substantial  facts,  which  might  safely  be  averred 
without  danger  of  refutation. 

Dr  Priestley  indeed  seems  willing  to  concede,  that 
Origen,  in  this  second  branch  of  his  reply  to  Celsus's 
Jew's  reproach,  "  may  allude  to  a  few"  of  the  Hebrew 
Christians,  "  who  had  abandoned  their  ancient  cus- 
toms ;"*  so  that  the  question  at  last  comes  to  this  :  how 
many  of  the  Hebrew  Christians  had  abandoned  those 
customs  ?  for  that  some  had  abandoned  them,  is  at  last 
confessed :  These  some  were,  by  Origen's  account, 
enough  to  be  reckoned  a  sect :  but  Dr  Priestley  hath 
taken  care,  to  settle  the  proportion  to  the  advantage  of 
his  own  argument.  "There  might  be,"  he  says,  "a 
few  Jewish  Christians  who  had  deserted  their  former 
customs,  which  would  have  given  Celsus  a  plausible 

*  Third  Letters,  p.  10. 


JJIS.  V.  DISQUISITIONS. 

pretence  for  making  such  a  division  of  them,  as  to  make 
these  one  of  the  classes,  yet  the  great  body  of  them  had 
not."*  But  there  is  nothing  in  Origen's  expressions 
which  should  imply,  that  either  of  the  two  sects  of  the 
Hebrew  Christians  which  retained  the  law,  was  a  great- 
er  body  than  the  sect  which  had  abandoned  it :  Some 
and  Some  and  Some,  is  the  word  by  which  the  mention 
of  each  class  is  introduced  ;  in  what  proportion  the  first 
"  Some"  might  fall  short  of,  or  exceed  the  second  or  the 
third,  it  exceeds  my  skill  in  computation  to  investigate  : 
Dr  Priestley  perhaps  solved  the  problem,  in  that  early 
period  of  his  life,  when  he  was  addicted  to  mathema- 
tical pursuits.f 

But  1  have  maintained,  that  Origen,  in  the  sentence 
which  follows  this  division  of  the  Hebrews  professing 
Christianity  into  three  classes,  gives  us  to  understand, 
that  of  these  three  sorts,  they  only  who  had  laid  aside 
the  observation  of  the  Mosaick  law,  were  in  his  time 
considered  as  true  Christians :  for  he  mentions  it,  as  a 
further  proof  of  Celsus's  ignorance,  that  in  his  account 
of  the  heresies  of  the  Christian  church,  he  had  omitted 
the  Israelites  believing  in  Jesus,  and  not  laying  aside  the 
law  of  their  ancestors :  I  refer  the  reader  to  an  exact 
translation  of  Origen's  words,  in  my  Remarks  upon  Dr 
Priestley's  Second  Letters.  J 

Upon  this,  Dr  Priestley  says  to  me  in  the  first  of  his 
third  Letters,  "  From  this  construction  of  the  passage, 
a  person  might  be  led  to  think,  that  Origen  represented 
Celsus  as  having  undertaken  to  give  an  account  of  the 
heresies  in  the  Christian  church,  and  as  having  in  that 
account  omitted  the  Israelites  believing  in  Christ,  and 

•  Second  Letters,  p.  191.         f  Ibid.          ±  P.  IT.  chap.  i.  sect.  7. 


DISQUISITIONS.  I) IS.  V> 

not  laying  aside  the  rites  of  their  ancestors  ;  and  upon 
110  other  ground  can  your  insinuation  stand."*  On  no 
other  ground  I  declare,  does  my  insinuation  stand  :  but 
1  am  confident,  that  with  the  exception  of  Dr  Priestley 
and  his  associates  and  admirers,  evrery  person  who  will 
take  the  trouble  to  consider  the  passage  as  it  stands  in 
Origen's  discourse,  will  perceive  that  mine  is  the  plain 
and  natural  construction  of  it :  every  unprejudiced  per- 
son who  can  construct  the  passage  for  himself,  will  per- 
ceive, that  Origen  hath  indeed  thus  represented  Celsus, 
as  pretending  to  give  an  account  of  the  heresies  among 
Christians,  and  in  that  account,  inserting  some  who  had 
not  a  right  to  be  inserted,  and  omitting  others  who  had  : 
of  Celsus's  work,  as  hath  been  before  remarked,  we 
know  not  the  contents,  but  so  far  as  they  may  be  gath- 
ed  from  Origen's  reply  :  it  should  seem  from  this  pas- 
sage in  Origen,  that  Celsus,  in  some  part  of  his  work, 
had  found  it  to  his  purpose  to  enumerate  the  principal 
sects,  of  which  he  would  have  it  believed  the  general 
body  of  the  Christians  was  composed  :  it  is  not  difficult 
to  conceive,  how  it  might  be  to  his  purpose  to  enumerate 
sects,  and  make  as  many  of  them  as  he  could  ;  he  might 
intend  by  this,  to  throw  discredit  on  Christians  in  ge- 
neral, as  disagreeing  among  themselves,  and  broken 
into  parties  about  the  particulars  of  the  revelations, 
which  they  professed  in  common  to  believe. — Origen 
says,  that  in  the  execution  of  this  design,  he  numbered 
among  the  heresies  of  the  church,  impious  sects,  which 
\vere  not  to  be  deemed  in  any  degree  Christian,  and  pas- 
sed unnoticed,  or  knew  not  of  the  real  heresy  of  the  Ju- 
daiziug  Hebrews  :  this  is,  in  itself,  a  very  just  and  perti- 

*  Thii-d  Letters  p.  13. 


DIS.  V.  INQUISITIONS. 

nent  objection  to  Celsus's  enumeration  ;  but  then  it  is  a 
confession,  that  the  Judaizing  Hebrews  were  an  hereti- 
cal sect,  and  of  consequence,  that  Origen  asserted  what 
was  false,  when  he  said  of  the  Hebrew  Christians  in 
general,  that  they  Judaized ;  for  that  the  great  body  of 
the  Hebrew  Christians  was  deemed  heretical,  is  what 
I  believe  no  adventurer  in  ecclesiastical  history  hath 
ever  yet  affirmed. 

Another  instance  which  I  produced  *  of  Origen's  dis- 
position to  prevaricate,  is  his  answer  to  Celsus's  Jew's 
objection  to  the  famous  prophecy,  of  the  miraculous 
conception  contained  in  Isaiah  vii.  14.  Celsus's  Jew 
maintains,  that  the  Hebrew  word  in  that  text  which  the 
Christians,  with  the  old  Greek  translators,  understand 
to  signify  a  virgin,  properly  renders,  not  the  condition 
of  virginity,  but  the  season  of  youth  ;  not  a  virgin,  but  a 
young  woman  :  Origen,  to  prove  on  the  contrary  that 
this  word  properly  renders  a  woman  in  the  state  of  vir- 
ginity, cites  a  text  in  Deuteronomy,  where  he  would 
have  it  believed,  that  the  word  in  question  is  clearly 
used  in  that  sense :  but,  according  to  our  modern  copies 
of  the  Hebrew  text,  the  words  which  correspond  to  the 
Greek  Tra^tro?  in  the  two  passages  in  Isaiah  and  Deu- 
teronomy, arc  two  different  words  ;  and  there  is  much 
reason  to  believe,  as  1  have  shown  in  my  Remarks  on 
Dr  Priestley's  Second  Letters,  f  that  the  same  two  dif- 
ferent words  occurred  in  the  two  passages  in  the  copies 
of  Origen's  time,  and  that  Origen  himself  was  apprised 
of  the  difference  :  the  text  in  Deuteronomy  therefore,  as 
it  stands  in  the  modern  Hebrew  text,  and  as  it  probably 
stood  in  the  more  ancient  copies,  affords  DO  illustration 


*  Remarks  on  Dr  Priestley's  Second  Letters,  P.  II.  chap.  i.  sec,  8. 
t  Jbiil. 


DISQUISITIONS. 

of  Isaiah's  words ;  and  Origen's  expressions  give  the 
greatest  cause  to  suspect,  that  he  well  knew  the  in- 
firmity of  his  own  argument ;  and  by  consequence,  that 
in  the  use  of  such  an  argument,  he  was  guilty  of  pre- 
varication. 

Dr  Priestley  says  to  me,  in  the  first  of  his  Third 
Letters,  "  The  question  hetween  Origen  and  the  Jews, 
was  not  what  was  the  word  in  the  Hebrew,  but  what 
was  the  meaning  of  it  in  a  particular  place."*  It  is 
true :  the  main  question  between  Origen  and  Celsus's 
Jew,  was  about  the  meaning  of  a  word  in  a  text ;  but 
then,  the  question  was  not  indefinite  about  one  or  anoth- 
er of  different  words  in  different  places  :  it  was  about  a 
particular  word  in  a  particular  place — about  the  mean- 
ing of  the  word  no^p  in  Isaiah  vii.  1-4.  This  was  indeed 
the  question  between  Origen  and  Celsus's  Jew ;  but 
the  question  between  Dr  Priestley  and  me  is,  by  what 
sort  of  argument  Origen  attempted  to  sustain  his  own 
opinion,  upon  the  matter  in  debate  between  him  and  the 
Jew  ?  Whether,  by  such  an  argument  as  might  have 
been  employed  by  an  honest  disputant,  who  had  pre- 
ferred general  truth  to  victory  in  a  particular  question. 
Origen,  to  justify  the  sense  in  which  he  understood  the 
word,  resorts  to  a  critical  argument :  he  appeals  to  a 
passage  in  Deuteronomy,  in  which  he  would  have  it 
believed,  that  the  word  was  indisputably  used,  in  the 
same  sense  in  which  he  understood  it  to  be  used,  in  the 
text  in  question  in  Isaiah  :  now  it  is  evident,  that  this 
critical  argument,  rests  entirely  upon  the  identity  of  the 
word  in  the  two  different  texts  ;  and  Origen's  good  faith 
in  the  use  of  that  argument,  rests  on  his  knowledge  or 
belief  of  the  identity  :  1  remark,  that  Origen  takes  not 

•  Third  Letter*,  p.  14. 


J)1S.  V.  DISQUISITIONS. 

upon  him  to  affirm  positively  this  identity  of  the  word, 
upon  which  his  whole  argument  depends,  but  speaks  of 
it  as  from  hearsay  only  : — I  remark,  that  from  the  pre- 
sent state  of  the  Hebrew  text,  there  is  great  reason  to 
think  that  this  hearsay  was  a  false  report ;  for,  in  the 
text  in  Deuteronomy,  we  find  not  ncty  but  n^ns :  nor  did 
Dr  Kennicott  find  nnVy  in  the  text  cited  by  Origen  from 
Deuteronomy,  in  any  one  of  the  innumerable  copies 
which  he  collated.  Now  I  say,  that  the  confessed 
sense  of  the  word  rtona  in  Deuteronomy,  can  never  settle 
the  disputed  sense  of  the  word  nc^y  in  Isaiah :  and  I 
say,  that  the  doubtful  manner  in  which  Origen  speak* 
of  the  identity  of  the  two  words  in  Isaiah  and  Deutero- 
nomy, creates  a  vehement  suspicion,  that  the  words 
were  different  in  the  copies  of  his  time,  as  they  are  in 
those  of  the  present  day ;  and  that  Origen  well  knew, 
that  his  argument  wras  founded  on  a  misrepresentation 
of  the  text  in  Deuteronomy.* 

Dr  Priestley  adds,  "  admitting  that  the  dispute  was 
about  the  true  reading  in  the  original,  what  great  mat- 
ter was  there  in  Origen's  saying  the  Jews  said  so,  when 
he  knew  that  what  they  said  was  true  ?"f  Here  again, 
we  have  a  beautiful  specimen,  of  our  Greek  professors 
readiness  in  the  Greek  language:  The  Jews  said  so ! 
Origen  says  nothing  of  what  the  Jews  said  :  there  is 
no  mention  of  Jews,  more  than  of  Cherokees,  except 
of  Celsus's  fictitious  Jew,  in  this  part  of  Origen's  dis- 
course. The  nominative  of  the  verb  9^1  is  not  the 
Jews,  but  the  indefinite  plural  understood ;  which  is 
usually  expressed  in  the  English  language  by  the  pro- 


*  Remarks  on  Dr  Priestley's  Second  Letters,  P.  n.  chap.  i.  sec.  ». 
|  Third  Letters,  p.  14, 


DISQUISITIONS.  VIS.  V. 

noun  they  used  indefinitely,  and  in  the  French  by  on  ; 
but  in  the  Greek  and  the  Latin  languages,  is  always 
understood,  never  is  expressed  :  wV  <paor/,  ut  aiunt.  "  As 
they  say,"  i.  e.  "  As  is  generally  said."  Origen  af- 
firms no,  that  what  was  generally  said  was  true  :  that 
he  should  shelter  himself  under  the  authority  of  a  vague 
report,  in  a  point  so  essential  to  his  argument,  in  which 
he  was  so  competent  to  judge  how  the  case  really 
stood;  is  a  strong  presumption  that  he  knew,  not  that 
this  report  was  true,  but  that  it  was  the  reverse  of  truth  : 
that  it  was  the  reverse  of  truth,  is  in  the  highest  degree 
probable,  from  the  present  state  of  the  Hebrew  text :  that 
Origen  knew  it  to  be  the  reverse  is  highly  probable,  from 
the  suspicious  manner  in  which  he  appeals  to  it :  and, 
upon  the  ground  of  this  strong  presumptive  evidence,  my 
impeachment  of  his  veracity  in  this  instance  stands. 

Dr  Priestley,  in  relating  my  remark  upon  Origen's 
critical  argument,  hath  taken  care  to  omit  that  very  ma- 
terial part  of  it,  that  in  our  modern  copies  of  the  Hebrew 
Bible,  the  word  which,  by  the  consent  of  all  interpre- 
ters, denotes  a  virgin  in  the  text  cited  from  Deuteronomy, 
is  a  different  word  from  that  which  the  LXX  with  great 
propriety  render  a  virgin  in  Isaiah  :  this  art,  which  Dr 
Priestley  is  so  apt  to  employ,  of  reducing  an  argument 
which  he  would  refute,  by  well-managed  abridgments, 
to  a  form  in  which  it  may  be  capable  of  refutation,  indi- 
cates so  near  a  resemblance  between  the  characters  of 
Origen  and  his  Hyperaspistes  in  the  worst  part  of  Ori- 
gen's,  that  perhaps  I  might  not  be  altogether  unjusti- 
fiable, were  I  to  apply  to  the  Squire  the  words  which 
Mosheim  so  freely  uses  of  the  Knight,  EGO  HUIC  TESTI, 

ETIAMSI  JURATO,    QUI    TAM    MANIFESTO    FUMOS  VENDIT, 
ME  NON  CREDITURUM  ESSE  CONFIRMO. 


sis.  n  DisQuismoxs.  4,63 


DISQUISITION  SIXTH. 

Of  St  Jerome' ft  orthodox  Hebrew  Christians. 

IN  the  fourth  of  his  Third  Letters,  Dr  Priestley 
Jesses  to  consider  the  evidence  from  Jerome,  in  favour 
of  the  existence  of  a  church  of  orthodox  Jewish  Chris- 
tians at  Jerusalem,  after  the  time  of  Adrian.*  The 
learned  reader  will  be  pleased  to  recollect,  that  my 
proof  of  the  existence  of  such  a  church  rests  in  part 
only,  upon  St  Jerome's  evidence :  the  entire  proof  rests 
upon  seven  positions,  laid  down  by  me  in  my  Remarks 
upon  Dr  Priestley's  Second  Letters,  P.  II.  chap,  ii ; 
and  St  Jerome's  evidence  goes  barely  to  the  proof  of 
the  last  of  those  positions,  the  seventh  :  namely,  "  that 
a  body  of  orthodox  Christians  of  the  Hebrews,  was  ac- 
tually existing  in  the  world  much  later  than  in  the  time 
of  Adrian  :"f  St  Jerome's  evidence  is  brought  for  the 
proof  of  this  position  singly ;  and  this  proved  by  St 
Jerome's  evidence,  in  conjunction  with  six  other  prin- 
ciples previously  laid  down,  in  the  proof  of  which  St 
Jerome  is  not  at  all  concerned,  makes  the  whole  evi- 
dence of  the  main  fact  which  I  affirm  ;  that  a  church  of 
orthodox  Christians  of  the  Hebrews  existed  at  jElia, 
from  the  final  dispersion  of  the  Jews  by  Adrian,  to  a 
much  later  period.J 


*  See  the  title  of  the  fourth  Letter.     Third  Letters,  p.  25. 

f  Remarks  on  Dr  Priestley's  Second  Letters,  P.  II.  c.  ii.  sec.  7. 

*  Ibid.  c.  ii. 

59 


DISQUISITIONS.  VIS.  TL 

Dr  Priestley  tells  me,  that  "  before  I  can  show  tbat 
the  passage  in  Jerome,  on  which  I  lay  so  great  a  stress, 
is  at  all  to  my  purpose,  I  must  prove  the  three  following 
things  :  first,  that  the  Hebrews  believing  in  Christ  were 
different  from  the  Nazarenes ;  secondly,  that  the  for- 
mer were  completely  orthodox  ;  and  thirdly,  that  those 
orthodox  Jewish  Christians  resided  at  Jerusalem."* 

Certainly,  it  must  be  an  argument  of  little  significance, 
that  cannot  be  applied  to  the  matter  in  question,  till  the 
thing  to  be  proved  by  it  hath  been  previously  proved 
from  other  principles  :  Dr  Priestley  hath  confessed,  that 
he  sometimes  condescends  to  amuse  himself  with  the 
fabrication  of  such  arguments  ;f  but  I  would  not  wil- 
lingly be  detected  in  the  use  of  them :  I  contend,  that 
the  passage  in  St  Jerome's  commentary  on  Isaiah,  to 
which  1  refer  in  my  Remarks  on  Dr  Priestley's  Second 
Letters,  (Part  II.  chap.  ii.  sec.  8.)  which  Dr  Priestley 
hath  given  at  length,  in  the  fourth  of  his  Third  Letters  ;£ 
I  contend,  that  this  passage  itself  contains  a  clear  proof, 
that  the  persons  there  mentioned  under  the  description 
of  "  Hebrews  believing  in  Christ,"  and  under  the  name 
of  "  Nazarenes,"  were  different  persons  :  I  contend, 
that  this  same  passage  affords  a  strong  presumptive  ar- 
gument, that  the  former  were  completely  orthodox.  The 
existence  of  these  Hebrew  believers  in  the  time  of  St 
Jerome,  being  thus  proved  by  St  Jerome's  evidence ;  the 
probability  of  the  fact  that  they  resided  at  ^llia,  and  that 
such  a  body  had  been  settled  at  jElia  from  the  time  of 
Adrian  downwards,  rests  upon  my  six  former  positions. 

St  Jerome  relates,  as  I  have  observed,  (Remarks^ 


*  Third  Letter«,  p.  28. 

f  First  Letters,  p.  130  ;  aud  see  my  Letterg  in  Reply,  Letter  ninth. 

4  Third  Letters,  p.  2$. 


DIS.  VI.  DISQUISITIONS, 

Part  II.  chap.  ii.  sec.  8.)  two  different  expositions  of 
the  prophecy  delivered  by  Isaiah  in  the  beginning  of 
the  ninth  chapter,  concerning  Zabulun  and  Naphtali: 
the  first  of  these  expositions  he  ascribes  to  "  the  He- 
brews  believing  in  Christ,"  the  other  to  « the  Naza* 
renes,  whose  opinion  he  had  given  above."  Dr  Priest- 
ley thinks,  that  by  these  Nazarenes  St  Jerome  "  did 
not  intend  any  other,  than  the  Hebrews  believing  in 
Christ,  but  only  meant  to  vary  his  mode  of  expres- 
sion :"*  This  might  seem  probable,  if  the  difference  of 
name  were  the  only  note  of  difference  between  the  peo- 
pie  ;  and  if  the  Nazarenes  had  not  been  mentioned  be- 
fore by  their  proper  name,  and  a  particular  opinion 
mentioned,  as  peculiar  to  the  person  so  named ;  but  to 
suppose,  that  under  all  these  circumstances,  St  Jerome 
Lath  described  the  same  people  under  different  names, 
merely  for  the  sake  of  varying  his  mode  of  expression, 
is  to  suppose,  that  he  hath  varied  his  expression  when 
it  ought  least  of  all  to  have  been  varied,  and  when  a 
variation  could  serve  no  purpose  but  to  create  confusion : 
an  imputation  to  which  St  Jerome  is  too  good  a  writer 
to  be  liable.  The  Nazarenes  are  twice  mentioned  by 
St  Jerome  under  their  proper  name,  in  his  commentary 
on  the  next  preceding  chapter  of  Isaiah's  prophecies  : 
the  eighth.  Upon  the  passage — in  lapidem  autem  of- 
fensionis  et  petram  scandali  daubus  domibus  Israel. — 
St  Jerome  remarks,  that  «  the  Nazarenes  who  so  re- 
ceive Christ,  that  they  discard  not  the  rites  of  the  an- 
cient  law,  interpret  these  two  houses  of  the  two  schools 
of  Samraai  and  Hillel,  from  which  sprang  the  Scribes 
and  Pharisees, — and  that  these  are  the  two  houses  that 

*  TMrd  Letters,  p.  co. 


DISQUISITIONS.  j)is.  rf> 

received  not  the  Saviour,"  &c.  Again,  upon  the  pas- 
sage at  the  conclusion  of  the  same  chapter, — cum  dixe- 
Tint  ad  vos  qucerite  a  Pythonibus, — he  remarks,  that  the 
Nazarenes  expound  this  passage  also  to  the  disadvan- 
tage of  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees.  The  persons  whom 
he  mentions  under  the  same  name  in  his  commentary 
upon  the  ninth  chapter,  put,  as  he  affirms,  a  similar 
sense  upon  the  first  verses  of  that :  expounding  the  dark- 
ness and  shadow  of  death,  which  overspread  the  land  of 
Zabulon  and  Naphtali,  of  the  load  of  Pharisaical  cere- 
monies, from  which  they  were  delivered  by  the  gospel : 
certainly,  these  persons  mentioned  by  the  same  name,  as 
expounding  passages  so  near  to  each  other,  in  the  8tli 
and  9th  chapters  of  Isaiah,  so  much  to  the  same  purpose, 
were  the  same  persons ;  and  when  St  Jerome  in  his 
commentary  on  the  ninth  rhapter  mentions  "  the  Naza- 
renes, whose  opinion  he  had  given  above"  he  refers  to 
that  opinion  of  the  Nazarenes,  which  he  had  actually 
related  just  above  in  his  commentary  on  the  eighth  chap- 
ter. But  "  the  Hebrews  believing  in  Christ,"  gave, 
according  to  St  Jerome,  an  exposition  of  this  prophecy 
concerning  the  land  of  Zabulun  and  Naphtali,  very  dif- 
ferent from  that  which  is  ascribed  by  him  to  the  Naza- 
renes :  they  imagined  that  the  prophet,  in  the  miseries 
which  he  describes  of  those  northern  provinces,  alluded 
to  the  miseries  of  the  captivity,  which  they  were  the  first 
to  undergo  ;  as  in  compensation,  they  were  the  first  who 
enjoyed  the  light  of  our  Lord's  own  preaching.  What 
similitude  can  Dr  Priestley  find  between  these  two  ex- 
positions ?  What  connexion  between  the  miseries  of  the 
captivity,  and  the  load  of  Pharisaical  ceremonies  ?  To 
say  as  Dr  Priestley  says,  that  the  Nazarsean  exposition, 


&1S.  VL  DISQUISITIONS.  400 

was  only  «  a  farther  illustration"*  of  this  of  the  Hebrew 
Christians,  is  as  if  any  one  should  say,  that  Dr  Priest- 
ley's exposition  of  the  beginning  of  St  John's  gospel,  is 
only  an  illustration  of  mine. 

Here  then,  two  different  expositions  of  one  and  the 
same  prophetick  text,  are  ascribed  to  expositors  descri- 
bed under  two  different  names  :  the  necessary  inference 
is,  that  these  expositors,  differing  in  their  names  and  in 
their  sentiments,  were  different  persons ;  or,  to  speak 
more  accurately,  since  they  are  names  of  bodies  by 
which  they  are  severally  described,  two  different  sects  : 
This  is  St  Jerome's  evidence,  that  the  Hebrews  be- 
lieving in  Christ,  were  different  people  from  the  Na- 
zarenes. 

Dr  Priestley  thinks  it  a  presumptive  argument,  that 
these  Hebrew  Christians  were  the  same  with  the  Naza- 
renes,  and  indeed  with  the  Ebionites  ;  that  St  Jerome 
introduces  their  interpretation  of  the  prophecy,  "  after 
giving  a  translation  of  the  passage  by  Aquila  and  Sym- 
machus,  both  Ebionites."f  Due  regard  being  paid  to 
this  circumstance,  Dr  Priestley  thinks  this  passage  of 
St  Jerome,  "  furnishes  an  argument  that,  in  the  idea  of 
Jerome,"  these  Hebrews  "  were  the  very  same  people" 
with  the  Nazarenes ;  "  if  it  does  not  also  prove,  that 
their  opinions  were  the  same  with  those  of  Aquila  and 
Symmachus,  or  of  the  Ebionites." J 

The  fact  however  is,  that  these  Hebrew  Christians, 
as  it  should  seem  from  their  exposition  of  the  prophecy, 
in  this  passage  at  least,  followed  not  the  translation 
cither  of  Aquila  or  Symmachus,  so  far  as  we  know  what 
their  translations  of  this  passage  were,  from  the  in- 

•  Third  Letter*,  p.  gd.  f  Ibid/  *  Ibid. 


BISQUISITIOXS. 

formalion  which  St  Jerome  hath  given :  the  Hebrew 
Christians  took  the  word  w*  to  be  the  proper  name  of 
the  region  of  Galilee  ;  whereas  both  Aquila  and  Sym- 
machus,  as  St  Jerome  tells  us,  took  it  for  an  appellative ; 
and  this  circumstance,  their  different  interpretations  of 
that  single  word,  with  Symmachus's  interpretation  of 
another  single  word  in  the  first  verse,  is  all  that  8t  Je- 
rome hath  "  given"  us,  of  the  translations  of  this  passage 
by  Aquila  and  Symmachus  ;  though  Dr  Priestley  hath 
thought  proper  to  speak  as  if  St  Jerome,  in  his  commen- 
tary, had  given  their  entire  translations  of  the  prophecy, 
and  would  lead  his  readers  to  believe,  that  the  exposi- 
tion of  the  Hebrew  Christians,  was  founded  on  those 
translations. 

The  probable  argument,  that  the  Hebrew  Christians 
were  orthodox,  is  this  :  that  the  character  given  of  them 
by  an  orthodox  writer  is  simply  this,  "  that  they  believed 
in  Christ,"  without  any  tiling  to  distinguish  their  belief 
from  the  common  belief  of  the  church,  without  any  note 
of  its  error  or  imperfection.  This  argument  acquires 
great  weight  from  the  well  known  temper  of  St  Jerome 
and  his  times.* 

Dr  Priestley  thinks  it  «  remarkable,  that  having  be- 
fore maintained,  that  those  whom  Jerome  called  Chris- 
tians in  his  epistle  to  Austin,  were  orthodox,  I  should 
now  allow,  that  by  the  same  term  he  here  means  here- 
ticks ;  and  that  the  phrase  believing  in  Christ,  should 
now  be  a  character  of  complete  orthodoxy,  when  in  that 
epistle  it  is  predicated  of  the  heretical  Ebionites  :"f  I 
never  maintained,  that  the  Nazarencs  mentioned  by  St 


*  Remarks  on  Dr  Priestley's  Second  Letters,  P.  II.  chap.  ii.  sec. 
f  Third  Letters  p.  26. 


vis.  r/.  DISQUISITIONS. 

Jerome  ID  his  epistle  to  St  Austin,  were  orthodox  Chris, 
tians— I  maintained  the  contrary  :*  I  only  maintain, 
that,  upon  the  particular  article  of  our  Lord's  divinity, 
they  were  certainly  orthodox ;  and  so  far  as  we  know, 
in  most  other  articles  of  their  creed :  but,  by  their  bigot- 
ted  attachment  to  the  law,  they  were  hereticks.  1  have 
given  my  reasons  f  why  I  think  the  Nazarenes  mention- 
ed here,  a  different  set  of  people  from  the  Nazarenes 
mentioned  in  the  epistle  to  St  Austin  ;  and  still  less,  if 
at  all,  heretical :  of  the  Ebionites,  the  belief  in  Christ  is 
not  predicated  in  that  epistle  simply,  as  here  of  the  He- 
brews, without  any  thing  to  distinguish  their  belief  from 
the  common  belief  of  the  church — without  any  note  of 
its  error  or  imperfection  : — St  Jerome,  when  he  speaks 
of  the  belief  of  the  Ebionites,  marks  and  reprobates 
their  misbelief  in  the  distinctest  and  severest  terms.  At 
this  day,  the  word  believer,  in  its  common  acceptation, 
signifies  a  sound  Christian  :  but,  with  certain  additions 
to  qualify  and  restrain  its  meaning,  I,  uncharitable  and 
intolerant  as  I  am,  might  apply  it  even  to  Dr  Priestley  : 
but  it  would  hardly  be  understood,  that  by  such  an  appli- 
cation of  it,  I  could  mean  to  allow  that  Dr  Priestley  is  a 
believer  in  the  full  sense  of  the  word — it  would  certainly 
be  in  very  different  senses,  that  I  should  apply  this  same 
word  to  Dr  Priestley,  and  to  the  Dean  of  Canterbury, 
Professor  White,  or  Mr  Parkhurst. 

If  there  be  any  thing  in  Dr  Priestley's  Letters  which 
I  receive  with  particular  complacency,  it  is  the  kind  con- 
cern which  he  sometimes  discovers,  lest,  in  my  heedless 
aeal  to  oppose  his  opinions,  I  should  suffer  my  own  foot 


•  Charge  L  sec.  12. 

t  Remarks  OR  9r  Priestley's  Second  Letters,  P.  II.  chap.  u.  sec. 


DISQUISITIONS.  DIS.  Ti- 

to slip  from  the  straight  line  of  orthodoxy  :  in  reply  to 
my  reasoning,  for  the  orthodoxy  of  one  branch  at  least 
of  the  Nazarenes,  from  the  exposition  ascribed  to  them 
by  St  Jerome  of  Isaiah  viii.  13,  14*,*  by  which  it  clearly 
appears,  that  they  thought  the  Saviour  of  the  world  de- 
signed in  that  passage  by  the  title  of  nwa*  nin>,  he  tells 
me,  that  "  he  wonders  that  this  mode  of  interpreting 
Scripture,  should  not  stagger  even  myself:  He  thought, 
that  the  most  orthodox  of  the  present  day  had  believed, 
that  the  person  characterized  by  the  title  of  the  Lord  of 
hosts,  had  been,  not  the  Son  but  the  Father."!  So  he 
may  have  thought :  that  he  hath  so  thought,  only  proves, 
that  he  is  as  little  acquainted  with  the  orthodoxy  of  the 
present,  as  of  past  days :  the  orthodox  of  the  present 
day  well  know,  that  the  Son  no  less  than  the  Father,  is 
often  characterized  in  the  Old  Testament  by  the  word 
Jehovah,  put  absolutely  :  they  hold  it  one  irrefragable 
argument  of  the  Son's  divinity,  that  the  writers  of  the 
New  Testament  usually  mention  Christ,  by  the  title  of 
Kuf/of,  "  the  Lord  ;"  which  is  the  word  that,  throughout 
the  Old  Testament,  in  the  Greek  version  of  the  LXX, 
is  used  as  equivalent  to  the  Hebrew  Jehovah.  Him 
whom  the  apostles  and  evangelists  called  K^/of ,  writing 
in  the  Greek,  they  must  have  called  nm>  (Jehovah)  had 
they  written  in  the  Hebrew  language — the  orthodox  of 
the  present  day  believe,  because  they  know  St  John  be- 
lieved it,  that  Christ  Jesus  is  the  JEHOVAH,  whom  the 
prophet  saw  upon  the  throne  the  year  that  King  Uzziah 
died,  whose  praises  were  the  theme  of  the  Seraphick 
Song,  whose  glory  filled  the  temple. 


*  Remarks  on  Dr  Priestley's  Second  Letters,  P.  H.  chap.  iii.  sec. 
f  Tliird  Letters,  p.  34. 


VT.  DISQUISITIONS. 

The  disturbed  foundations  of  the  church  of  JElia,  are 
again  settled  :  I  could  wish  to  trust  them  to  their  own 
solidity,  to  withstand  any  future  attacks.  I  could  wish 
to  take  my  final  leave  of  this  unpleasing  task,  of  hunt- 
ing an  uninformed,  uncaudid  adversary,  through  the 
mazes  of  his  blunders  and  the  subterfuges  of  his  sophis- 
try. But  I  have  found,  by  the  experience  of  this  con- 
flict, that  a  person  once  engaging  in  controversy,  is  not 
entirely  at  liberty  to  choose  for  himself  to  what  length 
he  will  carry  the  dispute,  and  when  he  will  desist :  I 
perceive  that  I  was  guilty  of  an  indiscretion,  in  disco- 
vering an  early  aversion  to  the  continuance  of  the  con- 
test: my  adversary  perhaps,  would  have  been  less  hardy 
in  assertion,  and  more  circumspect  in  argument,  had  I 
not  given  him  reason  to  expect,  that  every  assertion 
would  pass  uncontradicted,  and  every  argument  uncan- 
vassed  :  unambitious  therefore  as  I  still  remain,  of  the 
honour  of  the  last  word,  be  it  however  understood,  that 
if  Dr  Priestley  should  think  proper  to  make  any  further 
defence,  or  any  new  attack,  I  am  not  pledged  either  to 
reply  or  to  be  silent. 


APPENDIX. 


BISHOP  HORSLEY  has  declared,  that  in  pub- 
lishing the  preceding  Tracts,  his  object  was  not  to  bring 
forward  any  new  argument  in  support  of  the  divinity  of 
our  Blessed  Lord,  or  of  the  Catholick  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity;  but  to  destroy  the  credit  of  an  author  by  whom 
these  doctrines  had  been  attacked,  by  showing,  that  as 
an  ecclesiastical  historian  and  Greek  scholar,  he  had  no 
claim  to  such  deference  as  had  been  generally  paid  to 
him,  in  the  character  of  a  chemical  philosopher.  That 
the  Bishop  has  incidentally  added  strength  to  the  argu- 
ments, by  which  others  had  defended  the  Catholick 
doctrine,  against  the  insults  of  infidelity  and  the  sophis- 
try of  Unitarianism  ;  has  been  gratefully  acknowledged 
indeed,  by  every  lover  of  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus;  but 
his  main  object  was  to  show,  that  a  man  may  have  made 
valuable  discoveries  in  physical  science,  without  being 
entitled  to  implicit  belief,  when  professing  to  have  made 
discoveries  likewise  in  Christian  theology. 

To  a  superficial  thinker  this  may  appear  an  object, 
tinworthy  of  the  talents  and  erudition  which  the  Bishop  is 
universally  allowed  to  have  possessed  ;  but  he  who  re- 
flects, how  large  a  proportion  of  mankind  are  implicit 
believers,  whether  in  the  truth  or  in  error,  will  view  it 


APPENDIX. 

in  a  different  light.  We  talk  much  of  the  right  of  pri- 
vate judgment, — and  we  talk  well ;  for  every  man  has 
an  unquestionable  right  to  judge  for  himself,  of  the  truth 
or  falsehood  of  what  is  proposed  to  his  helief :  But  with 
respect  to  the  questions  discussed  in  this  volume,  the 
only  judgment  which  the  illiterate  multitude  can  form, 
is,  whose  report  is  best  entitled  to  be  implicitly  adopted 
by  them  as  the  truth  :  their  education  does  not  enable 
them,  by  consulting  the  records  of  Christian  antiquity, 
to  discover  for  themselves  what  was  the  faith  of  the  pri- 
mitive church :  they  must  rely  therefore,  with  unbound- 
ed confidence,  on  the  testimony  of  such  as,  having  con- 
sulted those  records,  make  their  report  of  that  faith  ;  and 
they  will  always  place,  as  they  ought  to  place,  the  great- 
est confidence  in  those  who  appear  to  them  best  entitled 
to  it,  by  their  reputation  for  learning,  integrity,  and  the 
love  of  truth. 

Dr  Priestley's  natural  talents  were  unquestionable ; 
his  successful  experiments  had  raised  him  high  in  the 
republick  of  letters,  or  rather  of  philosophy ;  by  those 
who  were  attached  to  him,  he  was  extolled  for  his  kind- 
ness and  benevolence  ;  and  he  took  care  on  all  occasions 
to  boast,  that  as  his  theological  opinions  led  neither  to 
honour  nor  to  emolument,  he  was  induced  to  publish 
them,  solely  by  his  love  of  truth.  That  the  mere  name 
of  such  a  man  must  have  decided  the  faith  of  many, 
cannot  be  doubted.  The  vulgar  know  not,  that  the  love 
of  novelty,  and  the  ambition  of  becoming  the  founder 
of  a  sect,  which  sometimes  steals  insensibly  even  into 
the  most  vigorous  and  upright  minds,  are  as  apt  to  per- 
vert the  judgment,  as  the  love  of  money  or  the  ambition 
of  rank  :  nor  is  it  among  the  vulgar  only,  that  the  au- 
thority of  names  supplies  too  often,  the  place  of  argu- 


APPENDIX. 

t :  Philosophers  themselves  are  all  more  or  less, 
partial  to  their  own  pursuits  and  their  own  theories  ;  and 
the  chemist  who  is  desirous  to  know,  what  was  the  faith 
of  the  earliest  Christians,  and  who  has  not  leisure  to 
read  the  voluminous  writings  of  the  fathers  of  the  church, 
Laving  found  that  Dr  Priestley's  reports  of  his  own  ex- 
periments on  air  are  entitled  to  the  fullest  credit,  even 
when  his  inferences  from  those  experiments  have  been 
untenable  and  absurd,  not  unnaturally  concludes,  that 
the  same  confidence  may  be  placed  in  his  reports  of  the 
doctrine  of  the  early  church. 

Such  being  the  case,  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to 
the  diffusion  of  truth,  that  the  authority  of  celebrated 
names  be  duly  appreciated ;  and  Bishop  Horsley  could 
not  have  employed  his  time  or  his  talents  to  better  pur- 
pose, than  in  bringing  down  the  name  of  Dr  Priestley  to 
its  proper  level.  Since  the  first  publication  of  the  Tracts, 
which  are  now  offered  a  third  time  to  the  church  of  Christ, 
no  man  until  very  lately  has  presumed  to  boast,  of  the 
weight  of  Dr  Priestley's  name  in  theological  controver- 
sy ;  and  thus  has  one  bias  been  removed  from  the  youth- 
ful mind,  when  entering  011  the  investigation  of  Catho- 
lick  truth. 

Of  all  this,  Mr  Belsham  appears  to  be  fully  aware  ; 
and  therefore,  in  the  appendix  to  the  twelfth  section  of 
his  late  work  entiled,  .2  Calm  Inquiry  into  the  Scrip- 
ture Doctrine  concerning  the  Person  of  Christ,  he  sets 
himself  in  good  earnest  to  destroy  the  authority  of  Bi- 
shop Horsley's  name,  as  his  Lordship  had  destroyed 
the  authority  of  Dr  Priestley's.  He  probably  thinks, 
that  as  one  of  those  names  sinks  the  other  will  rise,  and 
that,  when  the  equipoise  between  the  two  shall  be  re- 
stored, the  weight  of  his  own  mime  thrown  into  the  scale 


478  APPENDIX. 

of  I)r  Priestley's,  will  instantly  make  the  Bishop's  kick 
the  beam :  with  this  view  he  lays  hold  of  one  or  two 
passages,  certainly  not  of  the  greatest  importance  to  the 
question  at  issue,  between  the  Catholicks  and  the  Uni- 
tarians,  but  where  he  may  most  easily  employ  all  the 
arts  of  modern  controversy  ;  and  when,  by  partial  quo- 
tations and  contemptuous  language,  he  imagines  that  he 
has  thrown  a  sufficient  quantity  of  dust  into  the  eyes  of 
his  readers,  he  claims  to  himself,  what  he  will  not  allow 
to  his  "Redeemer,  the  divine  attribute  of  searching  the 
heart,  and  declares,  "  that  both  the  contending  parties 
retired  from  the  field  well  satisfied  with  the  result  of  the 
conflict, — Dr  Priestley  with  his  VICTORY,  and  Dr  Hors- 
ley  with  his  MITRE." 

Affecting,  after  his  master  in  theology,  a  great  rever- 
ence for  the  character  of  Origen  ;  he  begins  his  attack  of 
Bishop  Horsley,  with  accusing  him  of  defaming,  either 
ignorantly  or  wilfully,  that  learned  presbyter  of  the  an- 
cient church,  for  the  purpose  of  falsifying  history  re- 
specting the  faith  of  the  Hebrew  Christians. 

«  Dr  Priestley,"  he  says,  "  having  asserted  upon  the 
authority  of  Origen,  that  the  Jews  who  believed  in  Je- 
sus were  called  Ebionites ;  that  these  Ehionites  were 
of  two  sorts,  one  of  them  believing  the  miraculous  con. 
ccption,  the  other  not,  but  all  of  them  considering  Christ 
as  a  mere  man  ;*  Dr  Horsley  in  reply,  after  endea- 
vouring to  show  that  Origen's  words  might  be  interpre- 
ted differently,  proceeds  in  a  very  triumphant  tone  to 
remark,  "  Let  his  words  be  taken  as  you  understand 
them  5  and  so  far  as  the  faith  of  the  Hebrew  Christians 
of  his  own  time  is  in  question)  let  him  appear  as  an  evi> 

*  Belshara,  p.  422, 


APPENDIX.  479 

dence  on  your  side.  I  shall  take  what  you  may  think 
a  bold  step ;  1  shall  tax  the  veracity  of  your  witness — 
of  this  Origen." 

This  is  part  of  a  quotation  from  the  seventh  of  Dr 
Horsley's  Letters  to  Dr  Priestley ;  but  the  clause  which 
is  here  printed  in  the  Italick  character,  Mr  Belsham  has 
prudently  omitted  :  the  quotation  proceeds  to  the  end  of 
the  fifth  section  of  that  letter  ;  to  the  whole  of  which  the 
reader  is  requested  to  pay  particular  attention  :  if  he 
comply  with  this  request,  he  will  find,  that  in  the  four 
first  sections,  Dr  Horsley  has  not  only  enletnxnuKsi  to 
show  that  Origen's  words  might  be  differently  interpret- 
ed, but  actually  proved  that  they  will  not  admit  of  the 
sense,  in  which  Dr  Priestley  has  chosen  to  interpret 
them  :  convinced  however  of  the  goodness  of  his  own 
cause,  and  knowing  how  little  Origen  is  to  be  relied  on 
when  writing  controversy,  Dr  Horsley  made  a  conces- 
sion to  which  he  could  not  have  been  driven,  and  which 
he  probably  would  not  have  made,  could  he  have  fore- 
seen the  unfair  advantage  of  it  that  was  to  be  taken  by 
his  adversaries.  To  deprive  Mr  Belsham  of  that  ad- 
vantage, in  which  he  vain-gloriously  affects  to  triumph, 
it  is  proper  to  inform  the  reader,  that  in  the  quotation 
which  he  has  made  from  the  Bishop's  letter,  there  is 
another  prudent  omission  of  no  fewer  than  three  sen- 
tences, which  all  affect  the  question  at  issue,  of  Origeu's 
veracity. 

The  object  of  the  Bishop  was,  to  tax  the  veracity  of 
Origen  in  what  he  says  only  of  the  faith  of  the  Hebrew 
Christians  of  his  own  time  ;  but  the  object  of  Mr  Bel- 
sham  seems  to  be,  to  charge  the  Bishop  with  taxing  the 
veracity  of  Origen  on  every  question :  he  is  probably 
aware;  that  Origen  being  strongly  attached  to  the  phi- 


APPENDIX. 

>phy  of  his  age,  which  led  her  votaries  to  contend  in 
controversy  for  victory  rather  than  for  truth,  might  rea- 
dily be  believed  to  have  asserted  a  falsehood,  in  answer 
to  the  invective  which  his  antagonist  had  put  into  the 
mouth  of  a  Jew  ;  but  he  is  aware  at  the  same  time,  that 
the  character  of  Origen  stands  so  high  in  the  learned 
world,  that  he  who  should  charge  him  with  disregard  to 
/r/////  in  general,  would  excite  against  himself  the  indig- 
nation of  every  man  of  letters.  Whether  all  this  occur- 
red to  Mr  Belsham's  mind,  and  induced  him  to  omit  the 
sentences  to  which  I  allude,  is  unknown  to  me,  who 
possess  not  the  faculty  of  discerning  the  secrets  of  other 
men's  hearts ;  but  he  could  not  have  acted  otherwise 
than  he  has  done,  if  it  had  occurred  to  him  and  influen- 
ced hi*  conduct. 

If  the  reader  has  turned  to  the  fifth  section  of  the  Bi- 
shop's seventh  Letter  to  Dr  Priestley,  he  has  found  him 
modestly  saying,  "  All  this  1  affirm  with  the  less  hesita- 
tion, being  suppoi*ted  by  the  authority  of  Mosheim : 
from  whom  indeed  I  first  learned,  to  rate  the  testimony 
of  Origen  in  this  particular  question  at  its  true  value." 

This  sentence  Mr  Belsham  has  not  omitted  ;  but  he 
draws  from  it  an  inference  which,  by  all  the  arts  of  con- 
troversy, it  cannot  be  made  to  support.  "  One  would 
conclude,"  says  he,  "from  the  manner  in  which  Dr 
Horsley  appeals  to  the  testimony  of  Mosheim,  that,  hav- 
ing first  from  his  own  extensive  researches  into  ecclesi- 
astical history,  made  this  notable  discovery  of  a  Jewish 
church  at  jElia,  he  was  confirmed  in  his  judgment  by 
finding,  that  Mosheim  had  also  made  the  same  discove- 
ry :  but  the  truth  is,  that  the  learned  dignitary,  placing 
Implicit  confidence  in  Mosheinv's  testimony,  having  bor- 
rowed all  the  circumstances  related  by  that  celebrated 


APPENDIX.  481 

historian,  and  mixed  up  a  little  of  his  own,  has  stated 
with  great  parade  and  as  an  incontrovertible  fact,  a  nar- 
rative most  improbable  in  itself,  and  utterly  destitute  of 
foundation  in  ecclesiastical  antiquity."* 

I  have  been  told  by  a  learned  friend  of  mine,  much 
conversant  in  works  on  the  laws  of  reasoning,  that  Mr 
Belsham  published  some  years  ago  a  Compendium  of 
Logick,  remarkable  for  such  definitions  as  the  world 
had  never  before  seen.  It  must  be  by  the  aid  of  such 
definitions,  that  one  would  artificially  conclude  from  the 
manner  in  which  Bishop  Horsley  appeals  to  the  testi- 
mony of  Mosheim,  that  he  had  first  by  his  own  re- 
searches discovered  a  church  of  Jewish  Christians  at 
jElia,  and  was  afterwards  confirmed  in  his  judgment  by 
finding  that  Mosheim  had  made  the  same  discovery  be- 
fore him ;  for  by  the  laws  of  such  logick  as  is  known  in 
the  Schools,  a  conclusion  directly  contrary  to  this  must 
naturally  be  made  from  the  Bishop's  words.  He  says 
expressly,  "  that  it  was  from  Mosheim  that  he  first 
learned  to  rate  the  testimony  of  Origen  in  this  particu- 
lar question  at  its  true  value  ;"  and  though  he  was  a 
greater  master  than  most  men,  both  of  the  Aristotelian 
and  of  the  Baconian  logick,  I  am  persuaded  that  he 
could  not  have  conceived  it  possible,  to  draw  from  his 
own  words  such  a  conclusion  as  Mr  Belsham  has  drawn 
from  them. 

With  respect  to  what  the  same  original  logician  here 
calls  the  truth,  I  can  only  say,  that  it  was  not  Bishop 
Horsley's  practice  to  put  implicit  confidence  in  any  un- 
inspired testimony  ;  but  I  cannot  affirm  as  an  unques- 
tionable truth,  that  on  this  occasion  he  did  not  deviate 


*  Belsham,  p.  423. 

6i 


APPENDIX. 

from  his  usual  practice.  What  that  practice  was,  no 
man  not  possessing  the  faculty  of  discerning  the  secrets 
of  his  neighbour's  heart,  could  have  better  opportunities 
of  knowing  than  I  enjoyed ;  and  although  I  may  not 
Lave  derived  from  them  all  the  advantages  which  I 
might  and  ought  to  have  done,  yet  I  was  sufficiently  at- 
tentive to  the  Bishop's  mode  of  investigating  the  truth, 
to  be  able  to  say,  that  it  was  exactly  what  to  ordinary 
readers  his  words  declare  it  to  have  been  on  this  parti- 
cular occasion.  When  he  found  anything  of  importance 
asserted  by  a  modern  writer  on  ancient  authority,  far 
from  placing  implicit  confidence  in  the  modern  testi- 
mony, he  did  not  rely  even  on  modern  criticism ;  nor 
had  he  ever  recourse  to  an  English  or  French  transla- 
tion of  a  Greek  or  Latin  author  of  antiquity,  as  is  the 
common  practice  of  the  most  arrogant  polemicks  of  the 
Unitarian  school :  It  was  Bishop  Horsley's  practice,  to 
consult  the  authorities  referred  to,  with  his  own  eyes ;  and 
to  draw  from  them,  whatever  conclusion  his  own  reason 
and  critical  sagacity  enabled  him  to  draw  ;  though,  not 
deeming  himself  infallible,  he  was  happy,  as  every  man 
Dot  lost  to  all  sense  of  modesty  would  be,  to  have  his 
own  judgment  supported  by  the  concurrence  of  a  scho- 
lar so  eminent  as  Mosheim. 

But,  says  Mr  Belsham,  "  the  learned  dignitary,  pla- 
cing implicit  confidence  in  Mosheim,  borrowed  all  the 
circumstances  related  by  that  celebrated  historian,  and 
mixed  up  (with  them)  a  little  of  his  own."  At  the  dis- 
tance of  two  pages  indeed,  the  same  Mr  Belsham,  after 
representing  a  very  common  book  as  not  easily  to  be  met 
with  in  England,  affirms,  that  the  Bishop  had  in  fact 
advanced  nothing  but  what  he  had  borrowed  from  Mo- 
sheim :  both  these  assertions  cannot  be  true  :  whether 


APPENDIX. 

either  of  them  be  entitled  to  the  fullest  credit,  the  reader 
will  judge  for  himself,  when  he  has  read  with  attention 
the  first  and  second  chapters  of  the  second  part,  of  the 
Bishop's  Remarks  on  Dr  Priestley's  Second  Letters  to 
the  Archdeacon  of  St  Alban's,  and  compared  them  with 
the  following  extract  from  Mosheim's  work. 

"  Quum  HADRIANUS  Hierosolymam  ex  cineribus  suis 
paullatim  renascentem  denuo  funditus  evertisset,  seve- 
rasque  in  Judaicam  gentem  leges  tulisset,  maxima  Chris- 
tianorum  in  Palsestina  degentium  pars  a  lege  Mosis, 
cui  antea  paruerat,  descisebat,  atque  antistitem  sibi 
MARCUM  creabat,  non  Judaeum,  sed  alienigenam,  quo 
nihil  sibi  cum  Judseis  commune  esse  doceret.  Quod 
factum  indigne  fe rentes  illi,  qui  Mosaicae  legis  immode- 
rato  studio  ducebantur,  secedebant  a  fratribus,  atque  in 
ilia  Palsestinae  parte  quae  Peraea  dicebatur,  vicinisque 
locis  peculiarem  coBtum  condebant,  in  quo  caeremoniis 
a  MOSE  prsescriptis  vetus  sua  dignitas  incolumis  mane* 
bat.  Familia  haec,  exigua  sine  dubio,  claritatem  nun- 
quam  adepta  est,  quumque  per  aliquot  saecula  in  Pa- 
laestina  vixisset,  post  CONSTANTINUM  M.  paullatim  esse 
desiit." 

To  this  passage,  which  is  part  of  the  text  of  his  work 
entitled  J)e  Rebus  Christianonun  ante  Constant inum 
Magnum  Commentarii,  Mosheim  subjoins  the  following 
important  note. 

"  Eximius  est  hac  de  re  SULPITII  SEVERI  locus  Histor 
sacr.  Lib.  II.  cap.  xxxi.  p.  245.  Et  quia  Christiani 
(in  Palsastina  viventes)  ex  Judceis  potissimum  putaban- 
tur  (namque  turn  Hierosolymce  non  nisi  ex  circumcisions 
habebat  ecclesia  sarcerdotem)  militum  cohortem  custodias 
in  perpetuum  agitarejussit,  quce  Judceos  omnes  Hiero- 
aditu  arceret.  Quod  quidem  Christiance  jidei 


APPENDIX. 

pntjiciebat ;  quid  turn  ptene  omnes  Christum  Deum  sub 
li'^is  observatione  credebant.  Nimirum  id  Domino  or- 
dinante  dispositum,  ut  legis  servitus  a  liliertate  Jidei. 
a  ft/ ue  ecclesice  toller  etur.  It  a  turn  primum  Marcus  ex 
gentibus  apud  Hierosolymam  episcopus  fuit." 

This  is  the  passage  which  furnishes  the  basis  of  Bi- 
shop Horsley's  reasoning,  in  that  part  of  the  preceding 
Tracts  to  which  we  have  immediately  referred ;  and  it 
is  on  the  same  passage,  that  Mosheim  makes  the  fol- 
lowing observations. 

"  Etsi  nee  lucis,  nee  ordinis  satis  habet  hie  SULPITII 

locus,  clare  tamcn  origines  ostendit  illius  inter  Christian- 

os  ecclesisB,  quse  Christum  ita  sibi  colendum  esse  censuit, 

ut  Mosis  tamen  legibus  simul  obtemperaret.     Constat 

enim  (I)  ex  eo  Christianos  in  Palastina  viventes  Judaic! 

generis,  quamdiu  spes  erat,  fore,  ut  Hierosolyma  post 

primum  excidium  instauraretur,  ritus  a  MOSE  imperatos 

cum  CHRISTI  cultu  conjunxisse.     (II)  Repudiasse  max- 

imam  partem  horum  Christianorum  legem  Mosaicam  sub 

HADRIANO  quum  spes  omnis,  fore,  ut  Hierosolyma  re- 

surgeret,  occidisset,  atque  MARCUM,  alienigenam,  epis- 

copum  elegisse.     Hoc  ideo  sine  dubio  fiebat,  ne  forte 

episcopus  gente  Hebrseus,  innato  patrise  legis  amore 

ductus,  abrogatas  cairemonias  paulatim  reduceret.     (Ill) 

Causam  sublatse  hos  inter  Christianos  legis  Mosaicae 

fuisse  HADRIANI,  Imperatoris  severitatem,  qui    milite 

cingebat  spatium,  quod  urbs  Hierosolyma  quondam  oc- 

cupaverat,  omnesque  Judseos  ab  ejus  aditu  cohiberi  ju- 

bebat.     In  hac  re  explicanda  minus  est,  quam  decebat^ 

perspicuus  et  luculeutus  SULPITIUS,  multaque  retinet 

animo,   quse  rectius   enuntiasset.     At  liquet  tamen  in 

universum,  quid  sibi  velit,  nee  difficile  est  addere,  qujp 

omissa  sunt  ab  eo.     Christiani  Palaestinse  quamdiu  le£;i 


APPENDIX.  485 

Mosaics  serviebant,  a  Romanis  pro  Judaeis  habebantur : 
nee  temere  prorsus.  HADRIAKUS  igitur  quum  Judceis 
aditum  ad  loca,  quse  Hieorosolyraa  quondam  occupa- 
verat,  occlusisset,  Christianis  pariter  non  licebat  ad  illud 
spatiura  accedere.  Atqui  Christian!  hi  facultatem  sibi 
dari  cum  maxime  cupiebant  Hierosolymam  proficisceudi, 
quum  vellent,  ea  ergo  ut  potirentur,  csereinonias  legis 
Mosaicae  dimittebant,  atque,  ne  Romani  dubitareut,  se- 
rione  hoc  fecissent,  an  simulatae,  gubernationem  co3tus 
sui  non  JudsBO,  sed  aliengense,  comaiittebant.  Post  hoc 
apertum  cum  lege  Judteorum  divortium,  patiebantur  eos 
Romani  regionem  illam  ingredi,  a  cujus  aditu  milites 
Judreos  arcere  jussi  erant.  Ha^c  omnia  ex  SULPITIO, 
valde  licet  negligenter  scribat,  mediocri  attentionc  adhi- 
bita  eliciuntur." 

Mosheim  then  inquires  into  what  was  probably  the 
moti\7e,  which  induced  the  greater  part  of  the  Jewish 
Christians  to  cherish  so  strong  a  desire  to  return  to  Je- 
rusalem, as,  for  the  attainment  of  that  object,  to  abandon 
the  laws  and  rites  of  their  fathers  :  after  stating  several 
possible  motives,  and  rejecting  them  all  as  in  the  highest 
degree  improbable,  he  says, 

(t  Alia  ergo  sine  dubio  his  Christianis  ratio  fuit,  cur 
facultatem  Hierosolymam  adeundi  niajorem  patriis  suia 
cseremoniis  et  institutis  esse,  putarent,  atque  illam  legis 
Mosaic*  coutentione  redimere  non  dubitarent.  Neque 
magno,  ut  opinor,  Lahore  opus  erat  ad  earn  investigan- 
dam.  Construxerat  HADRIANUS  non  longe  ab  illo  loco, 
quo  steterat  Hierosolyma,  novam  urbem,  cui  JElice 
Capitolince  nomen  dederat,  quamque  magnis  juribus 
donaverat.  Huic  novae  coloniae  adscribi  valde  cupie- 
bant Christiani,  qui  partim  Pellse,  exiguo  oppido,  par- 
tim  in  agris,  parum  eomraode  et  liberalitcr  vivebant.  Ex- 


APPENDIX. 

cluscrat  vero  Impcrator  a  nova  urbe  sua  gentem  Judai 
cam ;  cujus  portio  qiium  Christian!  esse  viderentur,  qui 
legi  Mosaics  obcdiebant,  ad  eos  quoquc  lex  HADRIANI 
de  Judseis  non  in  civitatem  recipiendis  pcrtincbat.  (|uo- 
rirra  maxima  corum  pars,  quo  jus  civitatis  JFA'r&  conse- 
qui,  domicilinmquc  suum  Pella  JEliam  transfcrre  libere 
posset,  cjcremoniaruin  legem  a  MOSE  prascriptam  abro- 
gahat.  Auctor  hujus  consilii,  quod  in  primis  verisimilo 
est,  is  ipsc  MARCUS  erat,  quern  episcopum  sibi  prjcticie- 
bant,  homo,  quod  nooieii  docet,  Romanns  et  sine  dubio 
Romanis  in  Pal&stina  dominantibus  non  ignotus,  forte 
principem  quemdam  inter  Romanos  virum  cognatione 
attiugcns.  Suse  igitur  gentis  hominem  quum  caput  Chris- 
tianorum  praefecti  Romanorum  viderent,  timere  desinc- 
bant,  ne  quid  novae  civitati  periculi  ex  Christianis  orire- 
tur,  neque  amplius  Judserum  eos  in  numero  habebant:  ex 
quo  consequebatur,  ut  facultas  illis  concederetur,  in  no- 
vam  Imperatoris  urbem  migrandi  etcivium  ejus  juribus, 
quse  eximia  erant,  frueudi.  Nihil  est  in  his  difficile  cre- 
ditu  :  omnia  vero  egregie  ex  eo,  quod  diserte  scriptum 
legitur  apud  EPIPHANIUM  de  ponderibus  et  mensuris 
§  XV.  p.  171  •  confirmautur,  Chnstianos,  lege  Judaica 
dimissa,  Pella  Hierosolymam  migrasse.  Hierosolymae 
vero  nomine  nova  HADRIANI  urbs  intelligi  debet,  quae 
post  CONSTANTINI  M.  setatem  verum  nomen  suum  amit- 
tebat  et  Hierosolyma  vocabatur.  Vid.  HENR.  VALES lus 
•fldnot.  ad  Eusebium,  p.  61.  Quauiquam  si  vel  hoc 
memorise  non  esse  proditum,  omni  tamen  vacaret  contro- 
versia.  Certissimum  enim  est,  JEAix,  Christianorum  ab 
HADRIANI  jam  setate  celebrem  extitisse  ecclesiara,  atque 
episcopos,  qui  vulgo  Hierosolymitani  nominantur; 
enses  revera  fuisse." 


APPENDIX. 

a  Non  addit  SULPITIUS  cujus  locum  illustramus,  non 
omnes  Christiaaos  in  Judsea  viventes  insignem  lianc 
mutationem  probasse,  verum  par  tern  eorura  legis  Mosa- 
ic* studium  retinuisse,  atque  a  societate  eortim,  qui  legi 
nuntium  miserant,  recessisse.  Sed  nee  opus  erat,  ut 
hoc  adderet,  quum  in  vulgus  notum  esset.  Extitisse  in 
Palsestina  ccetum  Christianorum  legis  cultura  cum  Chris- 
dan  a  religione  conjungentium,  aliurn  item  ccetum  Mosai- 
cis  caeriraoniis  nihil  loci  et  honoris  tribuentem,  testatis- 
simmum  est.  Divisio  hsec  Christianorum  ex  Judteis 
ortorum  non  contigit  ante  tempora  HADRIANI  ;  scimus 
enim,  ante  hunc  oinnes  Christianos  in  Palsestina  commo- 
rantes  in  servandis  majorum  caeremoniis  Concordes  fuisse. 
Quocirca  sine  dubio  discidium  hoc  turn  extitit,  quum, 
duce  MARCO,  sub  HADIUANO  plerique  eorum  jugum  ri- 
tuum  abjicerent,  quo  securius  vivere,  atque  inter  cives 
novae  urbis,  ^Elise  Capitolinse,  recipi  possent." 

The  reader  who  attentively  compares  this  long  ex- 
tract, with  those  parts  of  the  preceding  Tracts  to  which 
I  have  already  referred,  as  relating  to  the  same  sub- 
ject;  will  perceive  with  what  justice  Mr  Belsham 
charges  Bishop  Horsley,  with  the  intention  of  passing 
off  Mosheim's  discoveries  for  his  own,  presuming  upon 
security  from  detection  by  the  scarcity  of  Moslieim's 
book ;  he  will  likewise  perceive  the  modesty  of  Mr  Bel- 
sham,  when  he  affirms,  that  the  Bishop  was  "nothing 
more  than  the  humble,  and  we  may  charitably  hope, 
the  ignorant  plagiary  of  the  falsehood  and  defamation 
of  another.''*  Bishop  Horsley  ignorant,  and  Mr  Bel- 
sham  learned  ! 

The  Bishop  must  have  been  ignorant  indeed,  if  he 

•  Belsham,  p.  427. 


APl'KXDLV 

presumed  on  the  scarcity  of  Moslieim's  book  entitled 
f)(  Helms  CJirixh'duwiini  ante  Constantinum  Magnum 
ComiHcnlurii;  for  though  I  brought  it  not  with  me  into 
Scotland,  I  found  it  in  the  libraries  of  the  two  first  cler- 
gymen to  whom  I  applied  for  the  loan  of  it :  but  what 
detection  had  the  Bishop  to  dread  ?  He  expressly  de- 
clared, that  Mosheim  first  pointed  out  to  him  the  ground 
over  which  he  afterwards  travelled,  and  taught  him  to 
rate  the  veracity  of  Origen,  on  a  particular  question,  at 
its  true  value.  He  boasts  of  no  discoveries  of  his  own, 
nor  attempts  to  defraud  Mosheim  of  his  :  he  consulted 
the  same  ancient  authors  which  had  been  consulted 
by  Mosheim  before  him,  and  by  Cave  before  Mo- 
slieiin;  and  as  a  lover  of  truth,  he  could  not  pass 
them  by  without  examination  ;  but,  though  from  the 
facts  recorded  by  Sulpitius  and  Epiphanius,  he  draws 
most  of  the  conclusions  which  had  been  drawn  by  his 
learned  predecessors  in  this  investigation,  he  does  not 
infer  from  these  facts,  every  thing  which  Mosheim  had 
inferred  from  them  ;  in  a  passage  of  that  historian's  long 
note,  which  1  thought  it  not  worth  while  to  transcribe, 
he  says  that  "  without  doubt  Marc,  the  roman  bishop  of 
the  church  of  Hebrew  Christians  at  jElia,  demonstrated 
to  those  Christians,  before  they  left  Pella,  that  the  ritual 
law  of  Moses  was  abolished  by  Christ :"  this  seems  to 
have  been  said,  1  know  not  on  what  authority,  with  the 
view  of  vindicating  the  Hebrew  Christians,  from  the 
charge  that  might  otherwise  be  brought  against  them,  of 
having  abandoned  the  customs  of  their  ancestors  from 
mere  worldly  motives  :  Mosheim  has  not  the  smallest 
doubt,  but  that  the  arguments  of  Marc  amounted  to  de- 
monstration :  "Minus  vero  (he  adds)  argumenta  ejus 
valuissent  apud  homines  a  teneris  legi  Mosaicse  adsue. 


APPENDIX. 

tos,  uisi  desiderium  accessisset  ad  ea  M\\&  habitan- 
di,  civiumque  ejus  commoditatibus  et  juribus  fruen- 
di,"  &c.  * 

Bishop  Horsley,  though  he  professedly  goes  over  the 
same  ground,  with  the  justly  celebrated  Chancellor  of 
the  university  of  Gottingen,  does  not  with  him,  attribute 
the  merit  of  weaning  the  affections  of  the  Hebrew  Chris- 
tians from  the  ritual  law  of  Moses,  to  this  Bishop  Marc, 
but  to  the  writings  of  St  Paul,  and  the  decree  of  the 
apostolical  college,  which,  as  he  justly  observes,  must 
Bave  put  every  believer's  conscience  at  ease  on  the  sub- 
ject.  He  admits  however,  that  the  desire  of  enjoying 
the  benefits  of  the  J£lian  colony  would  have  its  effect : 
"  I  take  it  for  granted  (says  he)  that  with  good  Chris- 
tians, motives  of  worldly  interest,  which  would  not 
overcome  conscience,  would  nevertheless  overcome  mere 
habit  ;"f  an(l  ^}ls  ne  wight  surely  take  for  granted  in 
the  present  case,  since  the  most  important  parts  of  the 
ritual  law,  to  which  the  Christians  at  Pella  were  habit- 
ually  attached,  the  severity  and  vigilance  of  Adrian,  had 
rendered  it  impossible  for  them  to  observe  :  sacrifices 
could  be  offered  only  on  the  site  of  the  Temple,  of 
which  Titus  had  ploughed  up  the  very  foundations  ;  but 
the  site  of  the  temple  was,  by  Adrian's  command,  sur- 
rounded by  a  cohort  of  soldiers  ;  stationed  there,  for 
the  very  purpose  of  driving  away  every  person  who 
should  approach  it,  with  the  view  of  offering  sacrifice. 

In  confirmation  of  the  inferences  drawn  from  the  nar- 
rative of  Sulpitius  Severus,  Bishop  Horsley  appeals  to 
the  same  passage  in  the  writings  of  Epiphanius,  to 


*  Mosh.  De  Reb.  Chris.  Ant.  Con.  Mag.  Com.  §  XXXVIII.  p.  .327. 
f  Sec  Ucmarks  upou  Dr  Priestley's  Second  Letters,  Part,  II.  chap.  ii. 


APPENDIX 

which  Mosheim  bad  appealed  before  liitn ;  but  lie  does 
what  Mosheim  did  not  do :  He  analyses  that  passage, ; 
vindicates  it  against  the  cavils  of  Dr  Priestley  ;  shows 
the  full  force  of  the  evidence  which  Epiphanius,  in  con- 
junction with  Sulpitius,  affords,  for  the  existence  of  a 
church  of  Hebrew  Christians  at  JR\ia. ;  and  the  testimo- 
ny of  these  two  ancient  authors  he  confirms,  by  the  tes- 
timony of  Orosius  and  of  Jerome,  to  neither  of  whom 
Mosheim  had  made  any  appeal :  he  was  not,  therefore, 
a  mere  humble  and  ignorant  plagiary  of  the  German 
historian  ;  but  surely  his  inferences  from  the  united  tes- 
timony of  three  or  four  ancient  authors,  cannot  be  enti- 
tled to  less  regard,  for  their  being  nearly  the  same, 
which  other  men  of  such  learning  as  Mosheim  and 
Cave,  had  drawn  before  him. 

The  perversion  of  the  sense  of  the  Bishop's  words  in 
some  parts  of  his  disquisitions  on  this  subject,  by  Mr 
Belsham,  who  represents  him,  as  TAKING  EVERY  THING 
FOR  GRANTED,  because  he  occasionally  makes  use  of 
that  phrase,  where  there  is  no  room  for  difference  of 
opinion  ;  is  scandalous,  because  it  must  have  been  wil- 
ful. It  can  deceive  no  man  however,  who  will  take  the 
trouble  to  have  recourse  to  the  Bishop's  Tracts,  in  order 
to  discover  what  he  really  took  for  granted  ;  though  the 
humble  Unitarians,  who  place  implicit  confidence  in  Mr 
Belsham,  may  take  it  for  granted,  on  his  report,  that 
the  editor  of  the  works  of  Newton,  knew  nothing  of  the 
laws  of  reasoning  or  of  demonstration. 

But,  according  to  Mr  Belsham,  the  reasonings  and 
criticisms  of  Bishop  Horsley  can  derive  little  support, 
from  their  coincidence  with  those  of  Mosheim  :  "  this 
migration  of  the  Hebrew  Christians  from  Pella  to  M\'m, 
is  stated,  says  he,  by  Mosheim  in  his  Ante-Coustantine 


APPENDIX. 

History ;  but  upon  more  mature  reflection  and  letter 
information,  it  had  been  omitted  in  the  General  Eccle- 
siastical History,  which  alone  Dr  Priestley  had  con- 
suited.* 

This  is  an  assertion,  at  least  as  precipitate  as  any 
that  Dr  Priestley  himself  ever  hazarded.  As  I  have 
not,  in  tli is  remote  corner,  access  to  the  first  edition 
of  what  Mr  Belsham  calls  the  General  Ecclesiastical 
History,  I  cannot  say  with  confidence  in  what  year  it 
was  first  published  ;  but  1  know  from  the  testimony  of 
Mosheim  himself  now  lying  before  me,  that  the  work 
entitled  De  Rebus  Christianorum  ante  Constantinuut 
Magnum  Commentarii,  which  suggested  to  Bishop 
Horsley  what  he  has  said  of  the  church  at  jElia,  was 
first  published  in  the  end  of  the  year  1753  ;  the  preface 
and  the  dedication  being  both  dated  at  Gottingen,  on  the 
6th  day  of  September  in  that  year. 

I  know  from  the  same  testimony,  that  Mosheim  em- 
ployed two  years  on  his  General  Ecclesiastical  Histo- 
ry ;f  an(l  Dr  Maclaine,  the  learned  translator  of  that 
history,  informs  us  J  that  the  author  died  at  Gottingen 
in  the  year  1755 ;  the  General  history  therefore,  must 
have  been  begun  the  instant  that  the  other  work  was 
published ;  so  that  there  could  not  have  been  time  for 
much  mature  reflection,  or  the  acquisition  of  better  in- 
formation between  the  publication  of  the  one  work  and 
the  commencement  of  the  other ;  even  on  the  supposi- 
tion, that  the  General  History  was  first  published  after 
the  other, — a  fact  of  which  1  am  very  far  from  beiug 
certain. 

It  was  indeed  published  many  years  after  the  Insti- 

*•  Belsharo,  p.  433.      f  See  his  Preface  to  that  History.      *  See  his  Preface. 


APPENDIX. 

tntioncs  Historian  Christlance  Major es ,  and  as  that 
work  is  bound  up  in  the  same  volume,  with  the  edition 
of  the  De  Rebus  Christianorum  ante  Constantinum 
Magnum  Commentarii  now  lying  before  me,  I  think  it 
not  improbable  that  Mr  Belsham,  with  the  usual  heed- 
less ness  of  his  master,  has  looked  at  the  date  affixed  to 
the  first  work  in  the  volume,  when  he  should  have  look- 
ed at  the  date  of  the  second  ;  and  finding  the  former 
dated  IV.  Kalend.  Octobr.  1739,  hazarded  the  assertion 
that  Mosheim,  after  mature  reflection  and  better  infor- 
mation, had  omitted  in  his  General  History  a  detail 
which  he  had  published  in  his  Commentaries. 

But  lias  he  omitted  this  detail  in  his  larger  history  ? 
No ;  he  has  given  the  detail  as  fully  as  was  possible  in 
such  a  work,*  and  refers,  as  he  had  done  in  his  Com- 
mentaries, to  Sulpitius  and  Episcopius  as  his  authors  ; 
but  he  has  omitted  the  critical  disquisition  on  the  words 
of  Sulpitius,  which  in  the  Commentaries  was  published 
in  a  long  note,  too  long  to  be  inserted  in  a  compendium 
of  general  history.  He  probably  thought  indeed,  that 
there  was  no  occasion  for  such  a  disquisition ;  for  Dr 
Priestley  had  not  then  appeared  ;  and  before  him,  I  am 
not  aware  that  any  writer  of  name,  had  called  in  ques- 
tion the  existence  of  a  church  of  orthodox  Hebrew  Chris- 
tians at  Jerusalem,  though  many  were  ignorant  that 
what  was  called  Jerusalem,  was  in  fact  jElia. 

I  have  already  observed,  that  the  Bishop  vindicated 
the  united  testimony  of  Sulpitius  and  Epiphanius  against 
the  cavils  of  Dr  Priestley :  the  cavils  to  which  I  more 
particularly  alluded,  refer  chiefly  to  Epiphauius,  and 


*  See  Machine's  translation  of  Mosheim's  Eceles.  Hislor.  Cent.  II.  Part  I  chap.  I. 
*  XI ;  and  Part  II.  ehap.  V.  $  I.  fccc. 


APPENDIX.  493 

were  founded  in  chronological  difficulties  ;  but  they  are 
Revived  by  Mr  Belsham,  and  brought  into  view  in  the 
following  triumphant  manner. 

"  The  FACT  is,  and  the  Archdeacon  does  not  deny  it, 
that  the  desolation  of  Jerusalem  of  which  Epiphanius 
speaks,  was  that  by  Titus,  A.  D.  70,  MORE  TIIAX  SIXTY 

YEARS  BEFORE  THE  COLONY  OF  l£lA\  EXISTED.       <  Bllt  this, 

says  the  learned  dignitary,  is  a  matter  of  no  importance  :  it 
is  sufficient  for  my  purpose,  that  these  returned  Christians 
were  residing  at  Jerusalem  or,  more  properly,  at  ^Elia,  at 
the  same  time  that  Aquila  resided  there  as  overseer  of  the 
Emperor's  works.'  So  then,  we  are  now  to  believe  that 
these  Hebrew  Christians,  who  returned  in  great  numbers 
to^lia  after  Adrian's  settlement  of  the  ^Elian  colony,  who 
abandoned  the  rites  of  Moses,  and  placed  themselves  un- 
der a  Greek  bishop  (a  Roman  bishop),  and  worshipped 
in  an  unknown  tongue,*  that  they  might  be  qualified  to 
partake  of  the  valuable  privileges  of  the  ^Elian  colony, 
were  the  very  same  persons  who  had  quitted  Jerusalem  to 
avoid  the  calamities  of  the  siege  by  Titus,  SIXTY  YEARS 
before  !  Now  if  we  allow,  that  at  the  time  of  their  re* 


*  Why  in  an  unknown  tongue  ?  Has  Mr  Belsham  forgotten  that  Greek,  Latin, 
and  the  dialect  of  Hebrew  which  was  then  vernacular,  were  all  spoken  by  every 
man  of  learning,  whether  Jew  or  Roman,  who  had  been  for  any  time  resident  in 
Judea  ?  During  the  trial  (if  trial  it  may  be  called)  of  our  Saviour  before  Pilate, 
ire  never  hear  of  the  governor  making  use  of  an  interpreter  ;  and  may  not  Marc, 
the  bishop,  have  been  as  much  master  of  Hebrew  as  Pilate  the  governor?  Nay, 
may  not  the  Hebrew  Christians,  from  their  long  residence  among  the  Gentiles  at 
Pella,  have  acquired  such  a  knowledge  of  the  Greek  tongue,  as  enabled  them  to 
read  the  whole  New  Testament  in  that  language,  in  which  by  far  the  greater  part 
of  it  was  written,  as  well  as  to  bear  their  part  in  the  same  language  in  the  publick 
devotions  of  the  church  ?  1  am  unwilling  to  charge  a  man,  probably  much  older  than 
myself,  with  ignorance  ;  but  what  Mr  Bolsham  says  of  abandoning  the  forms  of  pub" 
lick  worship,  to  which  the  Hebrew  Christians  had  been  accustomed,  would  lead  one 
to  imagine  that  he  is  not  aware,  thai  in  the  primitive  church  every  diocese  had  it? 
own  iiturgy,  t!.e  mere  forms  of  which  were  liable  to  bt  altered  by  every  Bishop  in 
succession,  according  to  his  own  ta?.te  and  judgment. 


APPENDIX. 

(rout,  they  were  upon  an  average  twenty  years  of  age, 
they  must  have  hecn  fourscore  at  the  time  of  their  return : 
and  it  is  really  quite  edifying,  to  figure  to  one's  self 
these  illustrious  Octogenaries,  'our  holy  brethren  the 
sv/;///.s-  of  1  lie  primitive  church  of  Jerusalem,'  upon  the 
first  intelligence  of  the  good  news,  hasting  away  from 
Pella  and  the  North  of  Galilee,  where  they  had  been 
passing  threescore  years  in  obscurity  and  tranquillity, 
and  in  heroick  deliance  of  the  most  inveterate  attach- 
ments, and  of  the  habits  and  prejudices  of  fourscore,  aban- 
doning at  once  the  rites  of  their  forefathers,  and  the 
forms,  and  even  the  language,  of  the  devotions  to  which 
they  had  been  ever  accustomed,  in  order  to  obtain — 
what  ? — the  valuable  privileges  and  immunities  of  the 
/Elian  colony !  And  how  gratifying  must  it  be  to  every 
pious  mind  to  learn,  upon  the  high  authority  of  Epipha- 
nius,  that  after  all  the  fatigues  and  hazards  of  their  jour- 
ney, they  were  still  in  a  flourishing  state,  teaching  and 
working  miracles  with  great  effect,  at  the  time  when 
Aquila,  who  was  converted  by  them,  was  superintend- 
ent of  Adrian's  works  !"* 

Whether  Mr  Belsham  was  restrained,  by  any  pru- 
dential motive,  from  making  these  observations  on  the 
reasoning  of  Bishop  Horsley,  during  that  prelate's  life, 
is  probably  known  to  Mr  Belsham  himself ;  but  1  will 
venture  to  assure  him,  that  the  Bishop,  were  he  now 
alive  and  possessed  of  all  his  youthful  ardour,  would 
not  deign  to  take  the  smallest  notice  of  them :  even  I, 
however  inferior  to  him,  will  not  condescend  to  make  a 
serious  reply  to  such  a  tissue  of  petulance  and  absurdi- 
ty :  I  think  it  but  fair  however  to  observe,  that  Mr  Bel- 

*  Belaham,  p.  435. 


APPENDIX.  495 

sham  has  not  employed  this  mode  of  reasoning,  so  suc- 
cessfully as  he  might  have  employed  it,  in  confirmation 
of  his  favourite  doctrine  of  Unitarianism ;  and  to  con- 
vince him  that  I  have  a  greater  regard  for  the  truth,  than 
even  for  the  memory  of  my  ever-honoured  father,  I  will 
here  supply  what  he  has  so  strangely  omitted. 

In  the  year  1682,  the  English  Unitarians  expressed 
a  strong  desire  to  convert  the  Mahometans  to  their  creed 
of  Christianity ;  arid  with  that  view  presented  an  ad- 
dress on  the  subject,  to  the  Ambassador  of  the  Emperor 
of  Morocco,  who  refused  to  receive  it.*  About  the  same 
period,  the  English  Unitarians  distributed  gratis  among 
the  people,  an  immense  number  of  pamphlets,  printed 
on  a  public k  stock,  of  which  one  object  was  to  prove, 
that  the  Scriptures  of  the  New  Testament  had  been  iu- 
icmolated  by  the  Trinitarians,  to  support  their  own  doc- 
trines.f  When  they  were  performing  these  notable  ex- 
ploits, the  English  Unitarians  cannot  on  an  average  have 
been  less  than  twenty  years  of  as;?  ;  and  yet  we  find  the 
very  same  persons,  the  English  Unitarians,  a  full  cen- 
tury afterwards  doing  the  very  same  things, — publishing 
Unitarian  pamphlets  by  subscription^  expressing  the 
same  earnest  desire  for  the  conversion  of  Mahomet,  ||  and 
accusing  the  Catholicks  of  having  wilfully  interpolated 
the  Greek  Scriptures.^  True  indeed  it  is,  that  they 
had  so  completely  forgotten  their  address  to  "  His  Illus- 
trious Excellency  AMETH  BEN  AMETH,  Ambassador  of 


•  See  Bishop  Horsley's  sixteenth  letter  to  Dr  Priestley. 
f  See  Pref.  to  Leslie's  Sos  Cont.  Discussed. 

*  See  Dr  Priestley's  Memoirs  of  himself. 

U  See  Dr  Priestley's  History  of  the  Corruptions  of  Christianity,  and  the  first 
series  of  his  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley. 

§  See  the  writings  of  the  Unitarians  in  general,  and  of  MrBelsham  in  particular, 
wice  the  commencemeut  of  the  nineteenth  eenuuy. 


4,0,6  APPENDIX. 

the  Mighty  Emperor  of  Fez  and  Morocco,  to  Charles 
the  Second  King  of  Great  Britain,"  that  in  the  year 
1784,  they  denied  that  such  an  address  had  ever  exist- 
ed :*  this  however  was  not  wonderful,  in  men  nhundred 
and  twenty-two  years  old  ;  for  the  memory  is  the  faculty 
which  generally  decays  first  through  age  :  but  it  is  really 
quite  edifying  %1to  see,  with  what  condescension  these 
aged  Unitarians  have  adapted  their  style,  to  the  varying 
tastes  of  the  several  generations  that  have  passed  away, 
since  they  addressed  AMETH  BEN  AMETH  ;  and  how 
gratifying  must  it  be  to  every  lover  of  the  truth  to  learn, 
on  the  high  authority  of  the  New  Testament  in  an  im- 
proved version,  with  a  corrected  text,  and  notes  critical 
and  explanatory,  that  these  Unitarians  have  retained 
all  their  other  faculties  in  such  perfection,  as  to  be  able, 
when  no  less  than  one  hundred  and  thirty-eight  years 
old,  to  perform  what  they  ventured  not  to  promise 
in  their  youth:  They  have  now  expunged  from  the 
Christian  Scriptures  the  Trinitarian  interpolations,  and 
brought  those  Scriptures  to  teach  that  faith  which,  ia 
their  address  to  the  Morocco  Ambassador,  they  say  God 
had  raised  up  Mahomet  to  defend  with  the  sword.  If 
the  Trinitarians  be  of  opinion,  that  the  preservation  of 
their  holy  brethren,  the  saints  of  the  primitive  church  of 
Jerusalem,  in  so  flourishing  a  state  as,  at  the  age  of 
eighty,  to  be  able  to  teach  with  great  effect,  be  any  proof 
of  the  Catholick  doctrine  (and  if  this  be  not  the  opinion 
of  the  Trinitarians,  it  is  not  easy  to  conceive  for  what 
purpose  a  calculation  was  made  by  Mr  Belsham  of 
the  age  of  their  holy  brethren),  how  much  stronger  is 
the  proof  of  the  Unitarian  doctrine,  from  the  preservation 

*  See  the  fifteenth  of  Dr  Priestley's  second  series  of  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley. 


APPENDIX. 

of  the  fellow-worshippers  with  the  Ambassador  of  Mo- 
rocco, in  a  state  so  flourishing  as,  at  the  more  advanced 

age  Of  ONE  HUNDRED  AND  THIRTY-EIGHT,  to  he  able  to  COt- 

rect  the  ORACLES  of  GOD  with  great  effect ! 

If  the  extract  which  I  have  made  from  Mr  Belsham's 
confutation  of  Bishop  Horsley,  be  of  any  importance  iu 
the  Unitarian  controversy,  this  addition  which  I  have 
proposed  to  it,  is  of  so  much  greater  importance,  that  I 
really  expect  Mr  Belsham's  thanks  for  having  suggest- 
ed it :  if  its  effect  go  to  prove,  that  there  could  be  no 
English  Unitarians  in  the  reign,  both  of  Charles  the  Se- 
cond and  of  George  the  Third ;  then  has  Mr  Belsham 
succeeded  in  proving,  that  there  could  be  no  church  of 
Hebrew  Christians  at  Pella  in  the  reign  of  Titus,  and 
afterwards  at  jElia  in  the  reign  of  Adrian  !  Or  should  it 
be  impossible,  as  I  think  it  is,  to  deny  that  there  were 
English  Unitarians  in  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second, 
then,  though  it  must  be  granted,  that  there  were  likewise 
Hebrew  Christians  at  jElia  under  a  Roman  bishop  in 
the  reign  of  Adrian,  I  have  at  least  deprived  the  Trini- 
tarians of  the  argument  which  they  might  draw  for  the 
truth  of  their  doctrine,  from  the  miraculous  preservation 
of  their  orthodox  Octogenaries,  and  have  transferred  that 
argument,  in  all  its  force,  to  the  English  Unitarians  of 
the  nineteenth  century. 

Of  the  remainder  of  Mr  Belshanvs  arguments  against 
Mosheim  and  the  Bishop,  I  confess  that  I  can  make 
nothing :  he  goes  over  the  same  ground  with  Dr  Priest- 
ley, from  whom  he  occasionally  differs  ;  but  these  differ- 
ences certainly  add  nothing  to  the  force  of  the  Doctor's 
original  reasoning.  He  contrives  however  to  weaken 
the  Bishop's,  by  making  him  occasionally  say  what  he 
has  not  said,  and  quoting  partially  what  he  has  said ; 

63 


APPENMX. 

and  upon  those  implicit  believers,  the  Unitarians,  this 
will  have  as  good  an  effect,  as  if  he  had  raised  the  con- 
jectures and  arguments  of  Dr  Priestley,  to  the  height  of 
demonstration  :  to  such  however,  whether  Trinitarians 
or  Unitarians,  as  do  not  repose  implicit  confidence  in  Mr 
Belsham,  I  have  only  to  recommend  the  old  adage  audi 
alteram  partem  ;  and  if  they  pay  attention  to  it,  I  am 
under  no  apprehension  of  injury  to  my  father's  fair  fame 
from  this  rude  attack,  even  in  the  judgment  of  candid 
Unitarians. 

The  man  who  can  burlesque  the  Scriptures,  for  the 
purpose  of  turning  into  ridicule  arguments  which  he 
does  not  fairly  state,  and  cannot  answer ;  is  not,  I  hope, 
likely  long  to  retain  implicit  credit,  with  serious  Chris- 
tians of  any  denomination. 

"  Whether  the  easy  simplicity"  he  says,  «  of  the  Ro- 
man magistrates,  was  really  imposed  upon  by  the  spe- 
cious artifices  of  our  *  holy  brethren/ — or  whether  their 
good-nature,  at  the  hazard  of  incurring  the  Emperor's 
displeasure,  winked  at  the  pious  frauds, — or  finally, 
since  by  the  testimony  of  the  Bishop's  great  authority, 
St  Epiphanius,  miracles  had  not  yet  ceased  in  the  Je- 
rusalem church,  whether  their  eyes  might  not  be  holden  so 
that  they  did  not  know  them, — does  not  appear."* 

To  the  admirers  of  the  improved  version  of  the  New 
Testament,  this  may,  for  aught  that  1  know  to  the  con- 
trary, appear  genuine  wit  and  sound  reasoning,  against 
the  possibility  of  such  a  church  of  Hebrew  Christians  as 
the  Bishop  contends  for,  enjoying  the  privileges  of  the 
Lilian  colony  ;  but  those  who  do  not  admire  that  ver- 
sion, will  probably  consider  such  a  ludicrous  application 

*  Belsham,  p.  437. 


APPENDIX. 

of  one  of  the  proofs  of  Christ's  resurrection,  as  a  mere 
subterfuge, — nay,  as  a  profane  artifice,  for  withholding 
the  reader's  attention  from  arguments,  which  Mr  Bel- 
sham  is  conscious  that  he  could  not  have  answered. 

But,  says  Mr  Belsham  in  the  words  of  his  master, 
"  My  Lord the  foundations  of  your  church  of  Trini- 
tarian Jews  at  Jerusalem  (^Elia)  after  the  time  of  Adri- 
an, were  attempted  to  be  laid  on  the  grossest  calumny, 
and  on  the  ruins  of  the  fairest  character  that  Christian 
history  has  to  exhibit ;  and  therefore  they  could  expect 
no  better  fate,  than  to  be  overturned  for  ever."* 

Foundations  laid  in  this  manner,  certainly  deserve  no 
better  fate  than  to  be  "  overturned  for  ever ;"  but  how 
comes  Origen  to  be  such  a  favourite  with  the  present  race 
of  Unitarians,  that  his  character  should  be  deemed  fairer 
than  the  character  even  of  Christ  Jesus  ?  According  to 
the  creed  of  Dr  Priestley  and  Mr  Belshara,  Jesus  and 
Origen  were  both  men,  and  nothing  more  than  men  ;  the 
characters  of  both  are  exhibited  in  Christian  history;  and 
here  we  are  solemnly  told,  that  the  character  of  Origen 
is  the  fairest  which  that  history  has  to  exhibit !  That 
Origen  was  a  man  of  great  talents  and  of  most  extensive 
erudition,  is  universally  admitted  ;  but  that  he  asserted 
at  one  time  the  very  reverse  of  what  he  had  taught  at 
another,  and  was,  in  controversy,  more  earnest  to  van- 
quish his  antagonist  than  to  maintain  the  truth,  without 
being  very  scrupulous  about  the  means  by  which  the 
Yictory  was  to  be  gained  ;  is  known  to  all  who  know  any 
thing  of  his  writings  :  of  all  this,  Bishop  Horsley  has 
given  specimens  from  his  works,  and  I  shall  add  another 
from  Dr  Cave,  because  Cave  was  one  of  his  most  learn- 


APPENDIX. 

ed  and  ardent  admirers,  and  has  made,  perhaps,  the  best 
apology  possible  for  his  tergiversation  in  controversy. 

66  Whilst  Origen  continued  at  Athens,  (which  was  not 
long)  he  returned  an  answer  to  a  letter  which  he  had 
received  from  Julius  Jlfricamts  concerning  the  history  of 
Susanna,  which  dfricanus,  by  short,  but  very  forcible 
arguments,*  maintained  to  be  a  fictitious  and  spurious 
relation :  Origen  undertook  the  case,  and  justified  the 
story  to  be  sincere  and  genuine,  but  by  arguments, 
which  rather  manifest  the  acuteness  of  his  parts  than 
the  goodness  of  Ids  cause  ;  and  clearly  show,  how  much 
men,  of  the  greatest  learning  and  abilities  are  put  to  it, 
when  engaged  to  uphold  a  weak  side,  which  has  no 
truth  of  its  own  to  support  it"\ 

The  learned  biographer  attributes  this  disregard  of 
truth  in  controversy,  to  Origen's  delight  in  argument, 
\vhich  led  him  according  to  his  apologist  in  Photius  to 
write  and  say  many  things  yu^a^/ac  x*'?ir  which,  in  his 
cooler  and  more  considering  moments,  he  would  not 
have  advanced  ;  and  this  again  lie  attributes  to  the  na- 
tural ardour  of  his  mind,  impelling  him  to  write  on  a 
variety  of  subjects  which  he  had  not  thoroughly  studied,^ 
and  to  his  attachment  to  the  philosophy  of  his  age,  of 
which  the  very  essence  was  the  spirit  of  disputation.  Of 
any  thing  more  than  this,  Bishop  Horsley  has  not  accu- 
sed Origen. — He  has  not  insinuated,  that  he  would  not 
have  been  entitled  to,  at  least,  as  much  credit  as  either 


*  The  substance  of  these  arguments,  which  are  indeed  unanswerable,  may  be 
seen  in  Cave's  Historia  Literaria,  in  the  short  biographical  account  of  Julius 
Africanus. 

t  Cave's  Lives  of  the  Fathers,  fourth  edition,  folio,  p.  159. 

*  Was  it  for  this  conduct  that  Dr  Priestley  considered  the  character  of  Origen  as 
the  fairest  that  Christian  history  has  to  exhibit?  It  is  conduct  in  which  he  himsctf 
certainly  imitated  the  teamed  and  ingenious  presbyter  of  Alexandria. 


APPENDIX. 

Sulpitius,  Epiphanius,  or  Jerome,  had  be,  like  tbem, 
been  coolly  writing  history  or  criticisms  on  the  Old 
Testament;  but  the  Bishop  has  accused  him,  of  mis- 
representing facts  through  design  or  inattention,  when 
writing  controversy ;  and  I  am  afraid  that  such  an  accu- 
sation, might  be  brought  against  zealous  controvertists 
in  every  age. 

Thus  Dr  Buchanan  in  his  zeal,  a  laudable  zeal  cer- 
tainly, to  have  Christian  missionaries  sent  into  our  do- 
minions in  the  East,  has  said  in  some  of  his  late  wri- 
tings ;  that  missionaries  of  all  denominations,  live  in 
perfect  harmony  with  each  other  in  India,  and  know  not 
those  distinctions  which  are  the  sources  of  dissension 
among  Christians  in  Europe.  Nay,  he  says  that  even 
the  distinctions  between  Papists  and  Protestants  are,  in 
the  East,  considered  as  sectarian  ;  the  only  controversy 
there,  being  between  the  true  God  and  an  idol.  Others 
again,  who  have  come  from  India  as  well  as  he,  who 
have  had  the  same  opportunities  of  making  observations, 
and  of  whose  zeal  for  religion  there  appears  to  be  no 
room  for  doubt,  give  a  very  different  account,  of  the  light 
in  which  the  various  missionaries  view  one  another  in 
the  East ;  and  represent  the  preaching  of  uusent  enthu- 
siasts, as  in  the  highest  degree  prejudicial  to  the  propa- 
gation of  genuine  Christianity.  Which  of  these  accounts 
are  we  to  believe  ?  Probably  neither  of  them  to  its  full 
extent ;  for  the  authors  of  both,  have  each  a  favourite 
object  in  view,  as  Origen  had  in  his  controversy  with 
Celsus  ;  and  these  objects  have  got  such  complete  pos- 
session of  their  respective  minds,  as  to  make  them  view, 
through  different  mediums  the  very  same  matters  of  fact, 
or  overlook  those  facts  entirely.  That  the  distinction 
between  Papists  and  Frotestauts  is  well  known  in  the 


East,  and  deemed  of  great  importance,  Dr  Buchanan 
himself  has  furnished  complete  proof,  in  the  account 
which  he  gives  of  the  Syrian  Christians  ;*  though,  like 
Origen  in  his  book  against  Celsus,  he  has  expressed 
himself  so  very  differently  within  the  compass  of  one 
small  volume. 

Even  Mr  Belsham  himself  is  not  free  from  this  weak- 
ness,  to  which  controvertists  of  every  description  are  in- 
deed very  liable :  though  I  am  as  far  from  suspecting 
him  of  a  disregard  to  truth  in  general,  as  my  father  was 
of  suspecting  Origen  of  such  a  disregard,  it  is  impossi- 
ble to  doubt  but,  that  in  the  heat  of  controversy  he  has, 
through  inattention  no  doubt,  asserted  at  least  one  false- 
hood as  notorious  as  that  of  which  the  Bishop  accused 
Origen — In  his  zeal  to  degrade  the  Son  of  God,  from 
the  dignity  of  the  Creator  to  the  rank  of  a  mere  man  in 
the  creation,  he  finds  the  epithet  pofoywc,  which  is  appli- 
ed to  him  by  St  John,  so  much  in  his  way,  that  to  get 
rid  of  it,  he  supposes  it  to  be  employed  by  that  apostle 
in  no  other  sense,  than  as  equivalent  to  *yat7nfloc,  which 
he  boldly  affirms  does  not  occur  in  St  John.  As  he  is 
one  of  the  authors  of  the  improved  version,  we  cannot 
suspect  him  of  having  never  read  the  original,  or  of  hav- 
ing read  it  with  so  little  attention,  as  to  have  totally 
overlooked  any  thing  of  importance  which  it  contains ; 
we  can  only  suppose,  that  his  mind  was  so  completely 
occupied  by  the  object  of  the  controversy  in  which  he 
was  engaged  with  the  celebrated  Dr  Clarke,  as  to  make 
him  lose  sight  at  the  instant,  of  at  least  six  different  sen- 
tences,  in  which  St  John  employs  the  word  etywrtfltt  ir» 

*  See  his  Christian  Researches  in  Asia: 


APPENDIX 

the  sense  in  which  it  is  commonly  employed  by  other 
Greek  writers.* 

Having  discussed  the  questions  agitated  by  Mr  Bel- 
sham,  concerning  the  veracity  of  Origen,  and  the  exist- 
ence of  a  church  of  Jewish  Christians  at  JElia ;  the  ques- 
tion respecting  the  sera  of  the  epistle  of  Barnabas,  the 
only  thing  remaining  on  which  he  has  chosen  to  enter 
the  lisis  with  Bishop  Horsley,  will  be  easily  disposed  of. 

"W  hoever  has  paid  to  the  Bishop's  Tracts  that  atten- 
tion, to  which  the  questions  discussed  in  them  have  so 
powerful  a  claim  from  every  Christian  ;  must  be  aware, 
that  the  epistle  of  Barnabas  was  quoted,  merely  as  evi- 
dence of  the  faith  of  the  first  Hebrew  Christians  ;  and 
until  I  met  with  Mr  Belshara's  book,  I  did  not  think  it 
possible  that  any  man  could  have  insinuated,  that  the 
Bishop  had  attributed  to  that  epistle  any  authority,  to 
which  even  an  apocryphal  book,  written  with  no  obvi- 
ously wicked  intention,  may  not  be  justly  entitled.  Mr 
Belsham  does  not  directly  charge  him  with  having  at- 
tributed to  it  any  undue  authority  ;  but  the  manner  in 
which  he  labours  to  set  aside  its  evidence,  must  lead  the 
unthinking  multitude  who  have  never  looked  into  the 
Bishop's  Tracts,  to  imagine,  that  he  considers  it  as  the 
work  of  an  inspired  apostle. 

"  The  venerable  Archdeacon  (says  Mr  Belsham)  hav- 
ing pledged  himself  to  prove,  that  the  divinity  of  our 
Lord  was  the  belief  of  the  very  first  Christians,  appeals 


*  See  the  British  Critick  for  January  1812,  to  which  I  am  indebted  for  pointing 
out  to  me  this  blunder,  as  Mosheim  pointed  out  to  my  father  the  passages  in  Sulpi- 
tius  and  Epiphanius.  I  hope  however,  that  even  Mr  Belsham  will  ghe  me  credit 
for  having  sonsulted  my  Greek  Testament  myself,  though  I  admit,  that  it  is  at  lear-t 
as  probable  that  I  should  have  relied  with  implicit  confidence  on  the  British  Critick, 
as  that  Bishop  Horsley  relied  with  implicit  confidence  on  the  Chancellor  of  the 
University  of  Gottingen. 


APPENDIX. 

in  liis  eighth  letter  to  a  work  of  great  antiquity,  under  the 
title  of  <  The  Epistle  of  Barnabas,'  which,  though  it  is 
admitted  not  to  have  been  written  by  the  companion  of 
St  Paul,  the  learned  writer  contends  to  have  been  a  pro- 
duction of  the  apostolick  age,  and  addressed  by  a  He- 
brew  Christian  to  his  Jewish  brethren  ;  from  this  epistle 
he  cites  the  following  passage  :  '  The  Lord  submitted 
to  suffer  for  our  souls,  although  he  be  the  Lord  of  the 
whole  earth,  unto  whom  he  said  the  day  before  the  world 
was  finished,  Let  us  make  man  after  our  image  and  our 
likeness/  He  adds  two  or  three  other  passages  of  the 
same  import :  he  then  remarks,  that  the  writer  mentions 
this  doctrine  as  an  article  of  their  common  faith;  he  brings 
no  arguments  to  prove  it ;  he  mentions  it  as  occason  oc- 
curs, without  showing  any  anxiety  to  inculcate  it,  or  any 
apprehension  that  it  would  be  denied  or  doubted,  and 
he  triumphantly  concludes ;  <  This,  Sir,  is  the  proof 
which  I  had  to  produce  :  it  is  so  direct  and  full,  that  if 
this  be  laid  in  one  scale,  and  your  whole  mass  of  evi- 
dence, drawn  from  incidental  and  ambiguous  allusions, 
in  the  other,  the  latter  will  fly  up  and  kick  the  beam.'  To 
this  argument  Dr  Priestley  replies  in  the  second  of  his 
second  series  of  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  by  reminding 
his  antagonist  of  the  doubts  entertained  by  many  learn- 
ed men  (and  by  his  antagonist  among  them)  of  the  genu- 
ineness of  this  epistle,  and  of  the  certainty  of  the  numer- 
ous interpolations,  and  those  such  as  respect  the  very 
subject  in  question :  adding,  I  must  see  other  evidence 
than  this  from  Barnabas,  before  I  can  admit,  that  the 
divinity  or  pre- existence  of  Christ,  was  the  belief  of  the 
apostolick  age."*  This  reply  sufficiently  impeaches  the 
testimony  of  the  pseudo-Barnabas. 

•  SeeBelsham,  p.440. 


APPENDIX.  505 

It  does  so,  if  by  the  word  impeaches  Mr  Belsham 
mean  challenges:*  Dr  Priestley  might,  in  this  sense, 
impeach  any  testimony  whatever — even  the  testimony  of 
the  apostles,  that  they  "  had  eaten  and  drunk  with  Je- 
sus of  Nazareth  after  he  rose  from  the  dead  :"  and  Mr 
Belsham,  if  it  seemed  good  to  him,  might  have  joined  in 
that  impeachment;  but  he  would  claim  to  himself  and 
his  master,  a  degree  of  deference  which  surely  is  not  due 
to  them,  were  he  to  expect  even  Unitarians  to  admit,  on 
their  bare  impeachment  unsupported  by  proof,  that  the 
apostles  were  false  witnesses !  Just  so  it  is  in  the  present 
case  with  respect  to  the  testimony  of  Barnabas :  he  may, 
or  may  not  be  a  false  witness  ;  but  as  the  Bishop  did  not 
expect  the  publick  to  believe  on  his  aV?cc  i$n  that  Barna- 
bas bears  testimony  to  the  faith  of  the  very  first  Chris- 
tians in  the  divinity  of  ou  r-ord,  so  neither  will  the 
publick  believe  Barnabas  t^  a  false  witness,  on  the 
impeachment  of  his  veracity  by  Dr  Priestley  and  Mr 
Belsham  !  It  would  be  very  unjust  however  to  the  me- 
mory of  Dr  Priestley,  not  to  apprise  my  readers,  that  he 
expects  from  the  publick  no  such  implicit  confidence,  in 
what  Mr  Belsham  calls  his  impeachment  of  the  testimo- 
ny of  Barnabas  :  he  assigns  his  reasons,  not  for  zw- 
peaching  that  testimony  (which  he  does  not)  but  for  con- 
tending, that  it  will  by  no  means  bear  the  stress  that  his 
antagonist  had  laid  upon  it ;  and  to  be  satisfied  whether 
those  reasons  have  any  validity,  the  reader  has  only  to 
compare  them  with  Dr  Horsley's  reply  in  this  volume.f 

Mr  Belsham  himself  seems  to  have  instantly  discover* 


*  See  Johnson's  Dictionary  nnder  the  word  IMPEACH. 

f  See  the  eighth  of  Dr  Horsley  's  Letters  to  Dr  Priestley,  the  first  of  Dr  Priest, 
ley's  second  series  of  Letters  to  Dr  Horsley,  and  Fart  L  sect.  2,  3,  of  Dr  Horsley '& 
Remarks  on  Dr  Priestley's  Second  Letters  to  the  Archdeacon  of  St  Alban's, 

64 


APPENDIX. 

ed,  that  bis  mode  of  impeaching  ancient  testimonies  is 
not  alone  sufficient  to  destroy  them;  he  proceeds  therefore 
to  give  an  answer  "still  more  satisfactory"  he  says,  from 
the  learned  Jeremiah  Jones,  and  begins  with  correcting 
some  mistakes  into  which  Dr  Horsley  had  fallen,  with 
respect  to  that  gentleman's  pedigree  and  private  history. 
What  this  has  to  do  with  the  question  at  issue  about  the 
deference  due  to  the  testimony  of  St  Barnabas,  or  of  the 
author  assuming  that  name,  1  confess  myself  unable  to 
imagine.  We  are  next  informed,  that  Mr  Jones  was 
the  relation  and  pupil  of  the  very  learned  Samuel  Jones, 
who  was  also  tutor  to  Dr  Lardner,  Maddox  bishop  of 
Worcester,  Butler  bishop  of  Durham,  Seeker  archbishop 
of  Canterbury,  and  Dr  Samuel  Chandler,  «  many  years, 
the  able  and  admired  pastor  of  the  highly  respectable 
Presbyterian  congregation  of  the  Old  Jewry."* 

This  is  somewhat  more  to  the  purpose,  as  it  shows 
that  Jeremiah  Jones  had  the  best  opportunity  of  being 
well  educated  :  and  I  have  not  a  doubt,  but  that  he  de- 
rived every  advantage  which  could  be  derived,  from 
the  tutor  of  so  many  eminent  men :  still,  the  circum- 
stance of  Mr  Jones  having  been  well  educated,  does 
not  tend  in  the  smallest  degree  to  destroy  the  evidence 
given  in  the  epistle  of  Barnabas,  that  the  divinity  of 
our  Lord  was  the  belief  of  the  first  Christians  :  Seeker, 
and  Butler,  and  Maddox,  and  Chandler,  were  all  con- 
vinced that  the  "  divinity  of  our  Lord  was  the  belief  of 
the  very  first  Christians  ;  and  since  they  were  all  educa- 
ted by  the  same  tutor,  and  all  possessed  of  eminent  abili- 
ties, why  should  not  we  pay  as  much  deference  to  their 
judgment  as  to  the  judgment  of  Jeremiah  Jones?  The 

»  Belaharo,  p.  4*1. 


APPENDIX. 

evidence  possessed  by  us,  of  what  was  the  belief  of  the 
first  Christians  will  lose  something,  I  do  not  thiuk  much, 
but  it  will  lose  something  of  its  weight,  if  the  testimony 
of  Barnabas  be  set  aside ;  and  no  orthodox  Christian  will 
allow  it  to  be  set  aside  without  proof,  by  the  ipse  dixit  of 
Mr  Jones,  merely  because  he  was  a  man  of  learning,  and 
the  fellow  pupil  of  three  eminent  English  bishops,  of 
one  very  learned  Socinian,  and  of  one  eminent  Presby- 
terian divine ! 

Mr  Belsham  seems  to  be  aware  of  this,  and  therefore 
gives,  in  the  following  words,  the  answer  supplied  by  the 
learned  Jeremiah  Jones,  which  he  says  is  still  more 
satisfactory,  than  the  impeachment  of  the  testimony  of 
Barnabas  by  himself  and  Dr  Priestley. 

"In  the  second  volume  of  his  admirable  treatise  ou 
the  canon  of  Scripture,  republished  a  few  years  ago  by 
the  University  of  Oxford,  Part  III.  ch.  37,  after  a  very 
full  and  impartial  inquiry  into  the  subject,  Mr  Jones 
states  it  as  his  opinion,  which  he  substantiates  by  abun- 
dant evidence,  that  the  epistle  was  written,  not  by  Bar- 
uabas  nor  by  any  other  Jew,  but  by  some  person  who 
was  originally  a  pagan  idolater;  that  it  is  an  apochryphal 
book,  and  was  never  read  in  the  churches  till  the  time 
of  Jerome  ;  that  it  contains  many  assertions  which  am 
absolutely  false,  and  a  great  number  of  trifling,  silly, 
and  idle  things  :  and  upon  the  whole,  he  concludes  from 
its  having  been  cited  only  by  Clemens  JLlexandrimis 
and  O-rigen9*  that  it  was  forged  at  Alexandria ;  and 
because  there  are  so  many  pious  frauds  in  it,  that  it  vt  as 


*  That  it  was  cited  bj  other  ancient  writers  besides  Clemens  and  Origen,  the 
reader  may  easily  satisfy  himself  by  perusing  the  Veterum  Testimonia  de  JZptstsfa 
St  Barndbtfy  prefixed  to  Cotelerins's  edition  of  the  apostolical  fathers. 


APPENDIX. 

the  forgery  of  some  such  person  as  corrupted  the  books 
of  the  Sybils,  and  that  it  was  written  about  the  middle 
of  the  second  century."* 

But  all  this  is  only  the  opinion  of  Mr  Jones,  and 
learned  as  I  doubt  not  he  was,  I  am  not  bound,  nor  is 
the  publick  bound  to  adopt  his  opinions  without  proof, 
in  preference  to  the  opinions  of  those  who  think  differ- 
ently of  the  epistle  of  Barnabas :  that  the  epistle  contains 
several  trivial,  silly,  and  idle  things,  and  was  not  writ, 
ten  by  Barnabas  the  apostle,  was  the  opinion  of  Bishop 
Horsley  as  well  as  of  Mr  Jones ;  and  the  Bishop  assigns 
the  reasons  on  which  his  opinion  was  founded  :  but  that 
the  epistle  is  the  work  of  some  apostolical  writer,  and 
no  forgery  of  a  converted  heathen  about  the  middle  of 
the  second  century,  is  the  joint  opinion  of  Bishop  Hors- 
ley and  Dr  Priestley  :f  now,  throwing  the  Bishop's 
opinion  out  of  the  scale,  whether  is  the  opinion  of  the 
learned  Jeremiah  Jones,  or  of  the  learned  Dr  Joseph 
Priestley  to  preponderate  on  this  occasion  ?  If  Mr  Bel- 
sham  think  that  two  such  names  must  keep  the  balance 
in  equipoise,  what  is  to  happen  when  we  throw  into  the 
Doctor's  scale,  the  opinions  of  Archbishop  Wake,  Dr 
Cave,  Cotelerius,  and  Bishop  Pearson,}  whose  opinion 
alone  is,  on  questions  of  this  sort,  of  greater  weight  than 
the  opinions  of  twenty  Jones's  and  of  as  many  Bel- 
shams,  of  greater  weight  indeed  than  the  opinion  of  any 
other  modern,  with  whose  writings  I  am  at  all  ac- 


•  Belsham,  p.  441. 

•}•  See  the  fifth  section  of  Dr  Priestley's  History  of  the  Doctrine  of  Atonement, 
in  his  Appeal  to  the  serious  professors  of  Christianity,  and  the  eighth  of  Dr  Hots- 
ley's  Letters  in  the  preceding  Tracts. 

}  Tliis  prodigy  of  learning  says,  (Lect.  II.  in  act  App.  §  10.)  Nemo  certe  fuit 
(reterum)  qui  hanc  epistolam  Baroabae  non  tribuerit,  ueque  in  ea  quidquam  ap- 
parct,  quod  cam  tctatera  noo  ferat. 


APPENDIX.  509 

quainted.  But  they  are  not  modern  opinions  only,  that 
must  be  thrown  into  the  scale  of  Bishop  Horsley  and 
Dr  Priestley. 

Origen  himself,  "  the  fairest  character  which  Christian 
history  has  to  exhibit,"  quotes  this  epistle,  not  barely  as 
the  writing  of  some  apostolical  men,  but  as  the  genuine 
writing  of  the  apostle  whose  name  it  bears  :  in  answer 
to  an  objection  which  Celsus  puts  into  the  mouth  of  his 
Jew,  to  the  characters  of  those  whom  our  Lord  called  to 
the  apostleship,  that  they  were  infamous  wretches,  pub- 
licans and  fishermen  ;  Origen,  after  observing  that  Cel- 
sus seems  willing  enough  to  believe  the  writings  of  the 
evangelists,  when  they  furnish  matter  for  detraction,  but 
not  in  matters  of  importance,  least  he  should  be  obliged 
to  confess  the  Divinity  openly  preached  in  their  writings, 
adds — TiyfcLT/loit  Stf  iv  TV  Bapa'Ca  Ka^ox/x^  '] 

£Jr   Toc^a  t/Ver,  eT^a/  tT/^flvf   xiti 

o1ii%tKt$oi1o  TVf  id/wf  oLTroroKvf  I»(rvf,  eV/af  virif  craaaf 
dro/4iat  dto/tolifvt .      K«t/  tr  TU  traiyyiKtQ  &e  T«  xa?a  AOUKOLV  <p)f<ri 

N  *•          ,  ,  *l->^          fl  '  '  "/I  *  * 

TOY   1BC'¥K   0  JltT^Of,      E^iXOi  OL7T  €^U»j     0/1  CCKWf  a^ 


That  the  epistle  of  Barnabas  which  is  here  cited  by 
Origen,  is  the  epistle  which  Messrs  Jones  and  Belsham 
think  unworthy  of  all  credit,  is  unquestionable  ;  for  the 
very  words  quoted,  are  in  the  fifth  chapter  of  that  epistle 
published  by  Cotelerius  :  It  is  true  Barnabas  adds,  that 
our  Lord  chose  for  his  apostles  the  greatest  of  sinners, 


and  Origen,  after  citing  several  passages  from  8t  Luke 
and  Ht  Paul,  acknowledging  the  apostles  to  have  been 
great  sinners,  assigns  a  similar  reason,  for  our  Lord 

*  Vid.  Orig.  contra  Celsum,  lib.  I.  p.  49.  ed.  Cantab.  165«. 


APPENDIX. 

Laving  made  choice  of  such  men  to  be  the  first  preach- 
ers  of  his  gospel. 

Here  then  we  have  Origen  bearing  testimony,  not 
barely  to  the  antiquity  of  the  epistle  ascribed  to  Barna- 
bas, but  even  to  its  genuineness  as  the  work  of  that 
apostle  himself ;  and  quoting  it  as  of  equal  authority, 
when  relating  a  matter  of  fact,  with  the  gospel  of  St 
Luke.  In  ascribing  it  to  the  apostle,  I  think  indeed  for 
the  reasons  assigned  by  Bishop  Horsley,  that  Origcn 
was  mistaken ;  but  into  such  a  mistake,  an  inquirer  into 
the  records  of  the  church  so  indefatigable  as  Origen, 
could  not  possibly  have  fallen,  had  the  epistle  been  for- 
ged by  a  converted  heathen  in  the  very  city  in  which 
he  was  born,  and  within  thirty  or  forty  years  of  his  birth. 
At  any  rate  Mr  Belsham  must  admit,  that  if  Origen  was 
liable  to  fall  into  such  a  mistake  as  this,  he  is  no  com. 
petent  witness  respecting  the  church  of  orthodox  Jew- 
ish  Christians  at  JElia  during  the  reign  of  Adrian ;  for 
though  he  was  more  than  once  at  JEt\m  or  Jerusalem, 
he  was  not  so  long  there  as  he  was  at  Alexandria ;  nor 
had  be  equal  opportunities  of  making  himself  acquaint, 
ed  with  the  original  state  of  the  Mlmn  church.  Indeed, 
the  epistle  itself  bears  internal  evidence  little  short  of 
demonstration,  that  it  could  not  have  been  composed  by 
a  converted  pagan  as  Mr  Jones  alleges  ;  for  .as  Bishop 
Horsley  observes,  "  none  but  a  person  bred  in  Judaism 
could,  in  that  age,  possess  such  a  minute  knowledge  of 
the  Jewish  rites  as  is  displayed  in  that  book." 

Here  then  we  have  a  number  of  eminent  men,  Bishop 
Horsley,  Dr  Priestley,  Archbishop  Wake,  Dr  Cave, 
Cotelerius,  and  Bishop  Pearson,  himself  a  host,  besides 
Origen  "  the  fairest  character  that  Christian  history  has 
to  exhibit/7 — all  opposed  to  the  learned  Jeremiah  Jones. 


APPENDIX. 

and  the  learned  Thomas  Belsham  ;  and  if  the  question 
is  to  be  decided  by  authority  or  by  votes,  the  Catholick 
epistle  of  Barnabas  must  be  deemed,  a  writing  of  the 
apostolical  age. 

"  No,"  says  Mr  Belsham,  it  is  not  of  the  apostolical 
age,  for  Jeremiah  Jones  substantiates  his  opinion  by 
abundant  evidence  ;"  but  where  is  that  evidence? — Mr 
Jones  has  indeed  cited  a  great  variety  of  testimonies — 
all,  it  is  to  be  supposed  that  he  thought  of  any  weight,  in 
deciding  the  authenticity  of  the  epistle,  and  among  these 
not  one  is  found  to  favour  Mr  Jones's  own  opinion. 
Three  out  of  the  four  ancient  authorities  produced  by 
him,  Clemens  Alexandrimis,  Origen,  and  Jerome,  con- 
tend that  the  epistle  is  genuine — the  work  of  the  apostle 
whose  name  it  bears — and  the  fourth,  Eusebius.  though 
he  ranks  it  among  the  books  which  are  spurious,  be- 
lieves it  to  have  been  written  in  the  apostolick  age :  of 
the  eighteen  modern  writers,  whose  sentiments  upon 
the  subject  Mr  Jones  has  detailed,  eight*  agree  in  the 
opinions  of  Clemens  Alexandrinus,  Origen,  and  Jerome, 
and  the  remaining  tewf  IQ  that  of  Eusebius  :  in  the  con- 
jecture therefore,  that  the  epistle  of  Barnabas  was  writ- 
ten  "  originally  by  a  pagan,  about  the  middle  of  the 
second  century,  and  was  the  forgery  of  some  such  per- 
•on  as  corrupted  the  books  of  the  Sybils,"  Mr  Jones 
stands  single  ;J  or  at  least,  stood  single  till  the  appear- 


•  J-Vosius.  Dr  Bernard.  DuPin.  Dr  Cave.  Archbishop  Wake.  Dr  S.Clarke. 
Mr  Le  Clerc.  Dr  Jenkin. 

f  Archbishop  Usher.  Hugo  Menardus.  Archbishop  Laud.  Cotelerius.  Bi- 
«hop  Fell.  MrDodwell.  Mr  Toland.  Dr  Mill.  Mr  Eachard.  Mr  Whiston. 

$  It  must  be  confessed  by  every  candid  man  who  consults  Mr  Jones's  work  oil 
the  Canon  of  Scripture,  that  the  author  has  displayed  great  ingenuity  and  con- 
siderable powers  of  reasoning  in  support  of  his  conjecture ;  ("for  Mr  Jones  too* 
really  a  fearned  man,  and  dealt  nut  in  contemptuous  but  argumentative  fan* 


APPENDIX. 

ance  of  Mr  Belsham  ;  and  how  unreasonable  it  would 
be,  to  suffer  the  opinion  of  a  single  writer,  to  decide  the 
authority  of  any  book  in  opposition  to  the  general  sense 
of  the  learned  world,  cannot  be  more  forcibly  illustrated 
than  by  applying,  with  a  slight  verbal  alteration  to  Mr 
Jones's  conjecture,  the  observations  which  he  himself 
makes  on  the  opinions  of  Clemens  Alexandrinus. 

"  Suppose  then  that  one  writer  (Jeremiah  Jones)  had 
too  low  an  opinion  of  a  book,  are  we  to  be  governed  in 
determining  its  authenticity  by  the  private  opinion  of 
one  single  writer,  contrary  to  the  Icnown  sentiments  of 
every  other  writer  f  Must  one  man  judge  for  the  whole 
Christian  world?  And  must  his  rejection  of  a  book 
prove  its  insufficiency,  when  it  appears  to  have  been 
received  by  every  Christian  writer  besides,  and  admit- 
ted on  its  own  internal  evidence,  to  have  been  the  work 
of  the  apostolick  age  by  every  one  who  has  mentioned 
it  ?  I  shall  add  no  more  here,  but  repeat  what  1  ob- 
served Vol.  I.  Prop.  v.  that  we  are  not  to  determine  the 
authority  of  any  book  or  books,  upon  the  credit  of  any 
one  or  two  particular  writers,  but  the  WHOLE  BODY  or 

THE.  WRITERS  OF  THE  CHURCH."* 

The  reader  is  by  this  time  satisfied,  I  trust,  with 
what  propriety  Mr  Belsham  has  applied  to  Bishop 
Horsley  such  epithets  as  ignorant  and  pitiful !  Of  this 
modern  champion  of  Unitarianism  1  know  nothing,  but 
from  his  inquiry  into  the  person  of  Christ,  and  his  share, 
whatever  it  may  be,  in  the  merits  of  the  improved  ver- 


jT/o§-e")    But  if  the  reader  will  take  the  trouble  to  compare  the  arguments  of 
Dr  S.  Clarke,  Bishop  Pearson,  and  Bishop  Horsley,  upon  the  point  at  Usue,  with 
the  reasoning  of  Mr  Jones,  he  will  find  the  latter  completely  refuted. 
•  Jones's  Can,  of  Scrip.  Vol.  1J.  Part  IU.  cap.  XI<. 


APPENDIX. 

sion  of  the  New  Testament :  but  from  these  specimens 
of  his  literature  and  powers  of  reasoning,  it  seems  not 
too  much  to  say,  that  he  is  at  least  as  inferior  to  Dr 
Priestley,  as  1  readily  acknowledge  myself  to  be  to  Bi- 
shop Horsley :  J)r  Priestley,  as  the  Bishop  always  de- 
clared, was,  in  the  departments  of  physical  science,  to 
which  he  had  devoted  his  attention,  a  great  man.  though 
he  had  no  pretensions  to  superiority  as  a  Greek  scholar, 
or  a  Scripture  critick  :  there  may  be  departments  in 
science,  in  which  Mr  Belsham  too  is  great ;  but  what 
they  are  I  have  not  heard  :  I  have  therefore  treated  him 
without  ceremony  ;  though  I  trust  that  1  have  never  ex- 
pressed myself  in  language  unworthy  of  a  gentleman  or 
a  Christian. — If  1  acknowledge  that  I  have  sometimes 
felt  it  difficult  to  repress  my  indignation,  and  that  I 
have  treated  with  ridicule  what,  being  unsupported  by 
argument,  admits  not  of  an  argumentative  reply;  I  am. 
persuaded,  that  by  the  candid  part  of  the  publick,  I 
shall  be  forgiven  ;  and  the  sentiments  of  ]\lr  Belsham 
himself,  will  give  me  no  concern.  T/V  ™nf>cc  xa<  n'n  r*lw 

TI   Troll   Tr'tTrfMTCLi     pv\  pihoipi  :    t£i/t)f  It  r«V  dyM(  KOH  T\STOIG 

CKpiihoijui    uvliri    AwXer    lilt    W?e 
r*1o  xa?a</la/V    ybot%  pot  ra^/al 
Amoipi  r»f   ayaO»c  d^otuf.      fiw^oyor  I 


65 


CONTENTS. 


I.  A  CHARGE  to  the  Clergy  of  the  Arch- 

deaconry of  St  Alban's,  ......         15 

II.  Letters  from  the  Archdeacon  of  St  JUban's 

in  Reply  to  Dr  Priestley,  .....         89 

III.  A  Sermon  on  the  Incarnation,     ....      303 


IV.  Remarks  on  Dr  Priestley's  Second  Let- 
ters to  the  Archdeacon  of  St  Allan's, 
with  proofs  of  certain  facts  asserted  by 
the  Archdeacon,  ........ 

V.  Supplemental  Disquisitions  on  certain 
points  in  Dr  Priestley9  8  Second  and 
Tftird  Letters  to  the  Archdeacon  of  St 

Mban's,  ........... 

66 


CONTENTS 

OF  THE 

ILetters  in  Reply  to  Dr  Priestley. 


LETTER  FIRST. 

<THE  Archdeacon  of  St  Alban's  declines  a  regular  contro- 
versy with  Dr  Priestley.  Produces  new  instances  of 
Dr  Priestley* s  inaccuracies  and  misrepresentations^  .  91 

LETTER  SECOND. 

A  recapitulation  of  the  Archdeacon's  Charge   .....       101 

LETTER  THIRD. 

In  Reply  to  Dr  Priestley's  introductory,  and  to  fitirt  of  his 
first  letter.  His  defence  of  his  argument  from  the  clear 
sense  of  Scripture  confuted.  Of  the  argument  against 
our  Lord's  pre -existence  to  be  drawn  from  the  materiali- 
ty of  man.  Of  the  Greek  pronoun  STO?, 10$ 

LETTER  FOURTH. 

In  Reply  to  Dr  Priestley's  first  letter.  His  defence  of 
his  argument  from  St  Joh?i's  first  epistle  confuted.  The 
phrase  "  come  in  the  flesh"  more  than  equivalent  to  the 
word  "  to  come."  St  John's  assertion  that  "  Christ 
fame  in  the  flesh'9  not  parallel  with  St  Paul's  that  «  ht 
•partook  offleth  and  blood" «  •'  1  ^ 


CONTEXTS. 


LETTER  FIFTH. 

PAGI. 

The  Archdeacon's  inter  fir  elation  of  Clemens  Romanus  de- 
fended.    The  shorter  epistles  of  Ignatius  genuine ).     .     .     133 

LETTER  SIXTH. 

In  Pefily  to  Dr  Priestley's  second.  The  difference  of  the 
JEbionites  and  A'azarenes  no  singular  or  new  opinion  of 
the  Archdeacon's.  The  same  thing  maintained  by  Mo- 
shrim  and  other  criticks  of  great  name.  Dr  Priestley's 
arguments  from  Origen  and  Kustbius  not  neglected  in, 
the  Archdeacon's  Charge.  Dr  Prii-sttey's  conclusions 
from  the  several  passages  cited  by  him  from  Epipha- 
nius  confuted.  The  Nazarenes  no  sect  of  the  apostolick 
age.  JKbion  not  contemporary  ivith  St  John.  The  an~ 
tiquity  of  a  sect  not  a  Jiroof  of  its  orthodoxy^  ....  131 

LETTER  SEVENTH. 

Continuation  of  Reply  to  Dr  Priestley's  second.  Of  the 
argument  from  Origen.  That  it  rests  on  two  pasnages 
in  the  books  against  Celsus.  The  Jirst  misinterpreted 
by  Dr  Priestley  in  a  -very  important  point.  JVo  argu- 
ment  to  be  drawn  from  the  two  passages  in  connexion. 
Origen  convicted  of  two  false  assertions  in  the  Jirst 
passage.  The  opinions  of  the  Jirst  age  not  to  be  con- 
cluded from  the  opinions  of  Origen, 1  >4 

LETTER  EIGHTH. 

A  positive  proof  still  extant  that  our  Lord's  divinity  was 
the  belief  of  the  -very  Jirst  Christians.  The  epistle  of 
St  Barnabas  not  the  ivork  of  an  apostle — but  a  produc- 
tion of  the-  apostoiick  age.  Cited  as  such  by  Dr  pr 


CONTENTS: 


PAGE. 

ley.  The  author  a  Christian  of  the  Hebrews — a  be- 
liever in  our  Lord's  divinity — writes  to  Christians  of 
the  Hebrews  concurring  in  the  same  belief, 166 

LETTER  NINTH. 

The  ftroofofthe  orthodoxy  of  the  first  age  overturns  Dr 
Priestley's  arguments  from  Hegesififms  and  Justin  Mar- 
tyr. Hegesijijius  a  voucher  for  the  Trinitarian  faith. 
Dr  Priestley's  own  principles  set  aside  his  interpreta- 
tion of  Justin  Martyr.  Dr  Priestley  himself  gives  it 
up.  Tertullian  makes  no  acknowledgement  of  any  popu* 
larity  of  the  Unitarian  tenets  in  his  own  time ,  .  .  .  .  Ifl 

LETTER  TENTH. 

In  Reply  to  Dr  Priestley's  third  letter,  in  which  he  would 
prove  that  the  primitive  Unitarians  were  not  deemed 
hcreticks.  His  arguments  from  Tertullian,  Justin  Mar- 
tyr, and  Irenxus,  confuted  by  the  Monthly  Reviewer. 
The  insufficiency  of  Dr  Priestley's  reply.  The  argu- 
ments from  Clemens  Alexandrinus  and  from  Jerome 
confuted, • 180 

LETTER  ELEVENTH. 

In  Reply  to  Dr  Priestley's  fourth,  in  which  he  defends 
his  argument  from  a  passage  in  Athanasius.  The  sense 
of  the  words  *£**•  n'Myos  mistaken  by  Dr  Priestley. — 
The  sense  of  the  wird  yMw^  mistaken  by  Dr  Priestley. 
Prudence  and  caution  not  synonymous.  The  matter 
of  fact  as  represented  by  Athanasius  mistaken  by  Dr 
Priestley.  His  grammatical  argument  refuted.  That 
Athanasius  speaks  of  unconverted  Jews  proved  from  a 
comparison  of  the  two  clauses  in  which  Jews  are  men- 
tioned. The  Gentiles  not  uninterested  in  questions  about 
the  Messiah.  Of  deference  to  authorities, 193 


CONTENTS.  519 


LETTER  TWELFTH. 

PAG*. 

In  Refily  to  Dr  Priestley's  fifth,  in  which  he  moves  cer- 
tain chronological  difficulties.  Himself  chiefly  concern- 
ed to  Jind  the  solution.  His  question  divided.  The 
divinity  of  our  Lord  preached  from  the  -very  beginning 
by  the  apostles.  Sf  Stejihcn  a  martyr  to  this  doctrine. 
His  dying  ejaculations  justify  the  worship  of  Christ. 
Christ  deified  in  the  story  of  St  Paul's  conversion.  The 
divinity  of  Jesus  acknowledged  by  the  apostles  from  the 
time  when  they  acknowledged  him  for  the  Messiah.  No- 
tions of  a  Trinity  and  of  the  deity  of  the  Messiah  current 
among  the  Jews  in  the  clays  of  our  Saviour,  ....  206 

LETTER  THIRTEENTH. 

In  Refily  to  Dr  Priestley's  sixth.  Dr  Priestley's  igno- 
rance of  the  true  principles  of  Platonism  appears  in  his 
disquisitions  concerning  matter  and  spirit.  The  equa- 
lity and  unity  of  the  three  principles  of  the  Platonists. 
Dr  Priestley's  peculiar  sense  of  the  word  PERSONIFI- 
CATION not  perceived  either  by  the  Archdeacon  or  the 
Reviewer.  The  outline  however  of  Dr  Priestley's  work 
not  misrepresented  by  the  Archdeacon.  The  conversion 
of  an  attribute  into  a  substance  differs  not  from  a  crea- 
tion out  of  nothing.  Never  taught  by  the  Platonists. 
The  eternity  of  the  Logos  independent  of  any  supposed 
eternity  of  the  world.  Not  discarded  therefore  by  the 
converted  Platonists.  Dr  Priestley's  arguments  from 
the  analogy  between  the  divine  Logos  and  human  reason 
answered.  The  Archdeacon  abides  by  his  assertion  that 
Dr  Priestley  hath  misrepresented  the  Platonick  language. 
The  Archdeacon's  interpretation  of  the  Platonists  rests 
not  on  his  own  conjecture  but  on  the  authority  of  Athena- 
goras — confirmed  by  other  authorities.  Dr  Priestley** 
quotations  from  Tertullian  considered— from  Lactantius9.  220 


LETTER  FOURTEENTH. 

PAGE. 

Jn  Rejily  to  Dr  Priestley's  eighth.  The  Archdeacon* s  sup- 
position that  thejirst  Ebionites  worshipped  Christ  defend- 
ed. His  supposition  that  Theodotus  was  the  first  ficrson 
tvho  taught  the  Unitarian  doctrine  at  Rome  defended,  .  240- 

LETTER  FIFTEENTH. 

In  Reply  to  Dr  Priestley's  seventh.  The  metaphysical 
Difficulties  stated  by  Dr  Priestley  neither  new  nor  unan- 
swerable. Difficulties  short  of  a  contradiction  no  objec- 
tion to  a  re-veal  fd  dnr  trine.  Difficulties  in  the  Arian 
and  Socinian  doctrines.  The  Father  not  the  sole  object 
of  worship.  Our  Lord  in  what  sense  an  image  of  the 
in-visible  God  and  the  Jirst-born  of  every  creature.  Not 
the  design  of  the  evangelists  to  deliver  a  system  of  fun- 
damental principles.  The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  rests 
vn  the  general  tenor  of  the  sacred  writings  The  infer- 
ence that  Christ  is  not  God  because  the  apostles  often 
speak  of  him  as  a  man  in-valid.  The  inference  from  the 
manner  in  which  he  sometimes  speaks  of  himself  invalid. 
The  Athanasians  of  the  last  age  no  Tritheists^  ....  247 

LETTER  SIXTEENTH. 

The  Unitarian  doctrine  not  well  calculated  for  the  conver- 
sion of Jews ,  Mahometans,  or  Infidels  of  any  description^  .  263 

LETTER  SEVENTEENTH. 

The  Archdeacon  takes  leave  of  the  controversy,    ....       273 
Appendix, 291 


CONTENTS 

OF  THE 

Remarks  on  Dr  Priestley's  Second  Letters, 
with  proofs,  §V. 

PART  FIRST. 

Rcmarki,    .................      325 

PART  SECOND. 

PROOFS. 
CHAPTER  FIRST. 

Of  Origen'a  want  of  -veracity.  Of  the  fathers  in  general. 
Of  the  passages  in  which  St  Chrysostom  is  sufi/iosed  to 
assert  that  the  afioatlea  temporized.  Ji  xfiecimen  of  COR- 

an  Unitarian,  ...........       339 


CHAPTER  SECOND. 

Of  the  church  of  Mlia  or  Jerusalem  after  Adrian.  MG- 
theim's  narration  confirmed.  Christians  not  included  in 
Adrian's  edicts  against  the  Jews.  The  re  turn  from  Ptlla  a, 
fact  affirmed  by  Efiifihanius.  Orthodox  Hebrew  Chris- 
tians existing  in  the  world  long  after  the  times  of  Adrian,  352 

CHAPTER  THIRD. 

Of  the  Hebrew  church  and  it*  sects,  ........       366 

CHAPTER  FOURTH. 

Of  the  decline  of  Calvinism.     Of  conventicles,     ....       3f4 

CHAPTER  FIFTH. 

Of  the  doctrines  of  Calvin.     Of  Methodists,      .....       3&4 


CHAPTER  SIXTH. 

Of  the  general  sfiirit  of  Dr  Priestley's  controversial  wri- 
tings.    Conclusion^    .............      388 


CONTENTS 

OF  THE 

Supplemental  Disquisitionf. 


DISQUISITION  FIRST. 

Of  the  fihrase  of  «  co7ning  in  the  flesh"  as  used  by  St  Po- 

lycarji  in  his  cjiistle  to  the  Philififiians, 399 

DISQUISITION  SECOND. 

OfTertullian's  testimony  against  the  Unitarians,  and  hia 
use  of  the  word  i  Dior  A, .  4d7 

DISQUISITION  THIRD. 

Of  what  is  found  relating  to  the  Rhinnitt*  in  the  writings 
of  Iren&us^  in  confutation  of  an  argument  advanced  by 
Dr  Priestley  in  favour  of  the  Ebionites,  in  the  third  of 
his  first,  and  the  fourth  of  his  second  Letters,  from  the 
writings  of  IT "en ecus  in  particular ', 416 

DISQUISITION  FOURTH. 

Of  the  sentiments  of  the  fathers  and  others  concerning  the 
eternal  origination  of  the  Son  in  the  necessary  energies 
of  the  jiatcrnal  intellect, 437 

DISQUISITION  FIFTH. 

Of  Or ig en's  want  of -veracity, 454 

DISQUISITION  SIXTH. 

Of  St  Jerome's  orthodox  Hebrew  Christians, 465 

475 


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